
Class^ L3- 

Book 



J 




IN OUR 
FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

MESSAGES AND ADDRESSES TO 
THE CONGRESS AND THE PEOPLE 
MARCH 5, 1917, TO JANUARY 8, 1918 

BY 

WOODROW WILSON 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 

" „ 

Frontispiece from drawing by 
WILFRID MUIR EVANS 




HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

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WOODROW WILSON 

IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

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CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

Foreword v 

I. The Second Inaugural Address ... i 

(March 5, 1917) 

II. We Must Accept War 9 

(Message to the Congress, April 2, 1917) 

III. A State of War 26 

(The President's Proclamation of April 6, 
1917) 

IV. "Speak, Act and Serve Together" . . 32 

(Message to the American people, April 15, 
1917) 

V. The Conscription Proclamation ... 40 

(May 18, 1917) 

VI. Conserving the Nation's Food .... 49 

(May 19, 1917) 

VII. An Answer to Critics 54 

(May 22, 1917) 

VIII. Memorial Day Address 56 

(May 30, 1917) 

IX. A Statement to Russia 59 

(June 9, 1917) 

X. Flag-day Address 64 

(June 14, 1917) 

XI. An Appeal to the Business Interests . 76 

(July 11, 1917) 

XII. Reply to the Pope 83 

(August 27, 1 917) 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

XIII. A Message to Teachers and School 

Officers 89 

{September 30, 1917) 

XIV. Woman Suffrage Must Come Now . . 92 

{October 25, 1917) 

XV. The Thanksgiving Day Proclamation . 96 

{November 7, 1917) 

XVI. Labor Must Bear Its Part 99 

{November 12, 1917) 

XVII. Address to the Congress 112 

{December 4, 1917) 

XVIII. Proclamation of War Against Austria- 

Hungary 130 

{December 12, 1917) 

XIX. The Government Takes Over the Rail- 

roads 134 

{A Statement by the President, December 
26, 1917) 

XX. Government Operation of Railroads . 143 

{Address to the Congress, January 4, 191 8) 

XXI. The Terms of Peace 150 

{January 8, 1918) 
Appendix 162 



FOREWORD 

This book opens with the second inaugural 
address and contains the President's messages 
and addresses since the United States was 
forced to take up arms against Germany. 
These pages may be said to picture not only 
official phases of the great crisis, but also the 
highest significance of liberty and democracy 
and the reactions of President and people to 
the great developments of the times. The 
second Inaugural Address with its sense of 
solemn responsibility serves as a prophecy as 
well as prelude to the declaration of war and 
the message to the people which followed so 
soon. 

The extracts from the Conscription Procla- 
mation, the messages on Conservation and the 
Fixing of Prices, the Appeal to Business In- 
terests, the Address to the Federation of Labor 
and the Railroad messages present the solid 
every-day realities and the vast responsibili- 
ties of war-time as they affect every Amer- 
ican. These are concrete messages which 
should be at hand for frequent reference, 
just as the uplift and inspiration of lofty 



FOREWORD 

appeals like the Memorial Day and Flag Day- 
addresses should be a constant source of in- 
spiration. There are also the clarifying and 
vigorous definitions of American purpose af- 
forded in utterances like the statement to 
Russia, the reply to the communication of 
the Pope, and, most emphatically, the Presi- 
dent's restatement of War Aims on January 
8th. These and other state papers from the 
early spring of 191 7 to January, 19 18, have 
a significance and value in this collected form 
which has been attested by the many re- 
quests that have come to Harper & Brothers, 
as President Wilson's publishers, for a war vol- 
ume of the President's messages to follow Why 
We Are At War. 

As a matter of course, the President has been 
consulted in regard to the plan of publication, 
and the conditions which he requested have 
been observed. For title, arrangement, head- 
ings, and like details the publishers are respon- 
sible. They have held the publication of the 
President's words of enlightenment and inspi- 
ration to be a public service. And they think 
that there is no impropriety in adding that in 
the case of this book, and Why We Are At 
War, the American Red Cross receives all 
author's royalties. 

In the case of the former book the evolution 
of events which led to war was illustrated in 
messages from January to April 1 5th. In the 



FOREWORD 

preparation of this book, which begins with the 
second inaugural, it has seemed desirable to 
present practically all the messages of war- 
time, and therefore three papers are included 
which appeared in the former and smaller book, 
in addition to the twenty-one messages and 
addresses which have been collected for this 
volume. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR 
OF WAR 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR 
OF WAR 



THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
(March 5, IQ17) 

My Fellow-citizens, — The four years 
which have elapsed since last I stood in this 
place have been crowded with counsel and 
action of the most vital interest and conse- 
quence. Perhaps no equal period in our his- 
tory has been so fruitful of important reforms 
in our economic and industrial life or so full 
of significant changes in the spirit and purpose 
of our political action. We have sought very 
thoughtfully to set our house in order, correct 
the grosser errors and abuses of our industrial 
life, liberate and quicken the processes of our 
national genius and energy, and lift our politics 
to a broader view of the people's essential in- 
terests. It is a record of singular variety and 



2 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

singular distinction. But I shall not attempt 
to review it. It speaks for itself and will be of 
increasing influence as the years go by. This 
is not the time for retrospect. It is time, 
rather, to speak our thoughts and purposes 
concerning the present and the immediate 
future. 

A COSMOPOLITAN EPOCH AT HAND 

Although we have centered counsel and 
action with such unusual concentration and 
success upon the great problems of domestic 
legislation to which we addressed ourselves 
four years ago, other matters have more and 
more forced themselves upon our attention, 
matters lying outside our own life as a nation 
and over which we had no control, but which, 
despite our wish to keep free of them, have 
drawn us more and more irresistibly into their 
own current and influence. 

It has been impossible to avoid them. They 
have affected the life of the whole world. 
They have shaken men everywhere with a pas- 
sion and an apprehension they never knew 
before. It has been hard to preserve calm 
counsel while the thought of our own people 
swayed this way and that under their influence. 
We are a composite and cosmopolitan people. 
We are of the blood of all the nations that 
are at war. The currents of our thoughts as 
well as the currents of our trade run quick at 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 3 

all seasons back and forth between us and 
them. The war inevitably set its mark from 
the first alike upon our minds, our industries, 
our commerce, our politics, and our social 
action. To be indifferent to it or independent 
of it was out of the question. 

And yet all the while we have been conscious 
that we were not part of it. In that con- 
sciousness, despite many divisions, we have 
drawn closer together. We have been deeply 
wronged upon the seas, but we have not 
wished to wrong or injure in return ; have re- 
tained throughout the consciousness of stand- 
ing in some sort apart, intent upon an interest 
that transcended the immediate issues of the 
war itself. As some of the injuries done us 
have become intolerable, we have still been 
clear that we wished nothing for ourselves 
that we were not ready to demand for all 
mankind, — fair dealing, justice, the freedom to 
live and be at ease against organized wrong. 

It is in this spirit and with this thought that 
we have grown more and more aware, more 
and more certain that the part we wished to 
play was the part of those who mean to vin- 
dicate and fortify peace. We have been 
obliged to arm ourselves to make good our 
claim to a certain minimum of right and of 
freedom of action. We stand firm in armed 
neutrality since it seems that in no other way 
we can demonstrate what it is we insist upon 



4 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

and cannot forego. We may even be drawn 
on, by circumstances, not by our own pur- 
pose or desire, to a more active assertion of 
our rights as we see them and a more imme- 
diate association with the great struggle itself. 
But nothing will alter our thought or our 
purpose. They are too clear to be obscured. 
They are too deeply rooted in the principles 
of our national life to be altered. We desire 
neither conquest nor advantage. We wish 
nothing that can be had only at the cost of 
another people. We have always professed un- 
selfish purpose and we covet the opportunity 
to prove that our professions are sincere. 

THE SPIRIT OF CO-OPERATION 

There are many things still to do at home, 
to clarify our own politics and give new vi- 
tality to the industrial processes of our own 
life, and we shall do them as time and oppor- 
tunity serve; but we realize that the greatest 
things that remain to be done must be done 
with the whole world for stage and in co- 
operation with the wide and universal forces 
of mankind, and we are making our spirits 
ready for those things. They will follow in 
the immediate wake of the war itself and will 
set civilization up again. We are provincials 
no longer. The tragical events of the thirty 
months of vital turmoil through which we 
have just passed have made us citizens of the 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 5 

world. There can be no turning back. Our 
own fortunes as a nation are involved, whether 
we would have it so or not. 

And yet we are not the less Americans on 
that account. We shall be the more American 
if we but remain true to the principles in which 
we have been bred. They are not the prin- 
ciples of a province or of a single continent. 
We have known and boasted all along that 
they were the principles of a liberated man- 
kind. These, therefore, are the things we 
shall stand for, whether in war or in peace : 

OUR NATIONAL PLATFORM 

That all nations are equally interested in the 
peace of the world and in the political stability 
of free peoples, and equally responsible for 
their maintenance; 

That the essential principle of peace is the 
actual equality of nations in all matters of 
right or privilege; 

That peace cannot securely or justly rest 
upon an armed balance of power; 

That Governments derive all their just 
powers from the consent of the governed and 
that no other powers should be supported by 
the common thought, purpose or power of the 
family of nations ; 

That the seas should be equally free and 
safe for the use of all peoples, under rules set 
up by common agreement and consent, and 



6 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

that, so far as practicable, they should be ac- 
cessible to all upon equal terms; 

That national armaments should be limited 
to the necessities of national order and domes- 
tic safety; 

That the community of interest and of power 
upon which peace must henceforth depend im- 
poses upon each nation the duty of seeing to 
it that all influences proceeding from its own 
citizens meant to encourage or assist revolu- 
tion in other states should be sternly and 
effectually suppressed and prevented. 

A UNITY OF PURPOSE AND ACTION 

I need not argue these principles to you, my 
fellow-countrymen: they are your own, part 
and parcel of your own thinking and your own 
motive in affairs. They spring up native 
amongst us. Upon this as a platform of pur- 
pose and of action we can stand together. 

And it is imperative that we should stand 
together. We are being forged into a new 
unity amidst the fires that now blaze through- 
out the world. In their ardent heat we shall, 
in God's providence, let us hope, be purged of 
faction and division, purified of the errant 
humors of party and of private interest, and 
shall stand forth in the days to come with a 
new dignity of national pride and spirit. Let 
each man see to it that the dedication is in 
his own heart, the high purpose of the nation 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 7 

in his own mind, ruler of his own will and 
desire. 

I stand here and have taken the high and 
solemn oath to which you have been audience 
because the people of the United States have 
chosen me for this august delegation of power 
and have by their gracious judgment named 
me their leader in affairs. I know now what 
the task means. I realize to the full the re- 
sponsibility which it involves. I pray God I 
may be given the wisdom and the prudence 
to do my duty in the true spirit of this great 
people. I am their servant and can succeed 
only as they sustain and guide me by their 
confidence and their counsel. The thing I 
shall count upon, the thing without which 
neither counsel nor action will avail, is the 
unity of America — an America united in feel- 
ing, in purpose, and in its vision of duty, of 
opportunity, and of service. We are to beware 
of all men who would turn the tasks and the 
necessities of the nation to their own private 
profit or use them for the building up of private 
power; beware that no faction or disloyal 
intrigue break the harmony or embarrass the 
spirit of our people ; beware that our Govern- 
ment be kept pure and incorrupt in all its 
parts. United alike in the conception of our 
duty and in the high resolve to perform it in 
the face of all men, let us dedicate ourselves 

to the great task to which we must now set our 
2 



8 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF ^ WAR 

hand. For myself I beg your tolerance, your 
countenance, and your united aid. The shad- 
ows that now lie dark upon our path will soon 
be dispelled and we shall walk with the light 
all about us if we be but true to ourselves — 
to ourselves as we have wished to be known in 
the counsels of the world a'nd in the thought 
of all those who love liberty and justice and 
the right exalted. 



II 



WE MUST ACCEPT WAR 
(Message to the Congress, April 2, 1917) 

Gentlemen of the Congress, — I have 
called the Congress into extraordinary session 
because there are serious, very serious, choices 
of policy to be made, and made immediately, 
which it was neither right nor constitution- 
ally permissible that I should assume the re- 
sponsibility of making. 

On the 3d of February last I officially laid 
before you the extraordinary announcement of 
the Imperial German Government that on 
and after the first day of February it was its 
purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of 
humanity and use its submarines to sink every 
vessel that sought to approach either the ports 
of Great Britain and Ireland or the western 
coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled 
by the enemies of Germany within the Med- 
iterranean. That had seemed to be the object 
of the German submarine warfare earlier in the 
war, but since April of last year the Imperial 
Government had somewhat restrained the 



io IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

commanders of its undersea craft in conformity 
with its promise then given to us that passen- 
ger-boats should not be sunk, and that due 
warning would be given to all other vessels 
which its submarines might seek to destroy- 
when no resistance was offered or escape at- 
tempted, and care taken that their crews were 
given at least a fair chance to save their lives 
in their open boats. 

The precautions taken were meager and hap- 
hazard enough, as was proved in distressing 
instance after instance in the progress of the 
cruel and unmanly business, but a certain 
degree of restraint was observed. 

Germany's ruthless policy 

The new policy has swept every restriction 
aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their 
flag, their character, their cargo, their destina- 
tion, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to 
the bottom without warning, and without 
thought of help or mercy for those on board, 
the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those 
of belligerents. Even hospital-ships and ships 
carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and 
stricken people of Belgium, though the latter 
were provided with safe conduct through the 
proscribed areas by the German Government 
itself and were distinguished by unmistakable 
marks of identity, have been sunk with the 
same reckless lack of compassion or of principle. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR n 

I was for a little while unable to believe that 
such things would, in fact, be done by any 
Government that had hitherto subscribed to 
the humane practices of civilized nations. 
International law had its origin in the attempt 
to set up some law which would be respected 
and observed upon the seas, where no nation 
had right of dominion, and where lay the 
free highways of the world. By painful 
stage after stage has that law been built up 
with meager enough results, indeed, after all 
was accomplished that could be accom- 
plished, but always with a clear view at 
least of what the heart and conscience of 
mankind demanded. 

This minimum of right the German Govern- 
ment has swept aside under the plea of retalia- 
tion and necessity, and because it had no 
weapons which it could use at sea except these, 
which it is impossible to employ as it is em- 
ploying them without throwing to the winds 
all scruples of humanity or of respect for the 
understandings that were supposed to underlie 
the intercourse of the world. 

I am not now thinking of the loss of property 
involved, immense and serious as that is, but 
only of the wanton and wholesale destruction 
of the lives of non-combatants, men, women 
and children engaged in pursuits which have 
always, even in the darkest periods of modern 
history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. 



12 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

Property can be paid for ; the lives of peace- 
ful and innocent people cannot be. 

GERMAN WARFARE AGAINST MANKIND 

The present German warfare against com- 
merce is a warfare against mankind. It is a 
war against all nations. American ships have 
been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which 
it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but 
the ships and people of other neutral and 
friendly nations have been sunk and over- 
whelmed in the waters in the same way. There 
has been no discrimination. The challenge is 
to all mankind. Each nation must decide 
for itself how it will meet it. The choice 
we make for ourselves must be made with 
a moderation of counsel and a temperateness 
of judgment befitting our character and our 
motives as a nation. We must put excited 
feeling away. 

Our motive will not be revenge or the vic- 
torious assertion of the physical might of the 
nation, but only the vindication of right, of 
human right, of which we are only a single 
champion. 

When I addressed the Congress on the 
26th of February last I thought that it would 
suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, 
our right to use the seas against unlawful 
interference, our right to keep our people safe 
against unlawful violence. But armed neu- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 13 

trality, it now appears, is impracticable. Be- 
cause submarines are in effect outlaws when 
used as the German submarines have been 
used against merchant shipping, it is impossi- 
ble to defend ships against their attacks as the 
law of nations has assumed that merchantmen 
would defend themselves against privateers or 
cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the 
open sea. 

It is common prudence in such circum- 
stances, grim necessity, indeed, to endeavor to 
destroy them before they have shown their 
own intention. They must be dealt with upon 
sight, if dealt with at all. 

The German Government denies the right 
of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas 
of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the 
defense of rights which no modern publicist 
has ever before questioned their right to de- 
fend. The intimation is conveyed that the 
armed guards which we have placed on our 
merchant-ships will be treated as beyond the 
pale of law and subject to be dealt with as 
pirates would be. 

Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at 
best ; in such circumstances and in the face of 
such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; 
it is likely to produce what it was meant to 
prevent; it is practically certain to draw us 
into the war without either the rights or the 
effectiveness of belligerents. 



14 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

There is one choice we cannot make, we are 
incapable of making: we will not choose the 
path of submission and suffer the most sacred 
rights of our nation and our people to be ig- 
nored or violated. The wrongs against which 
we now array ourselves are not common 
wrongs; they reach out to the very roots of 
human life. 

BELLIGERENCY THRUST UPON US 

With a profound sense of the solemn and 
even tragical character of the step I am taking 
and of the grave responsibilities which it in- 
volves, but in unhesitating obedience to what 
I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that 
the Congress declare the recent course of the 
Imperial German Government to be in fact 
nothing less than war against the Government 
and people of the United States. That it 
formally accept the status of belligerent which 
has thus been thrust upon it and that it take 
immediate steps not only to put the country 
in a more thorough state of defense, but also 
to exert all its power and employ all its re- 
sources to bring the Government of the Ger- 
man Empire to terms and end the war. 

WHAT THIS WILL INVOLVE 

What this will involve is clear. It will in- 
volve the utmost practicable co-operation in 
counsel and action with the Governments now 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 15 

at war with Germany, and as incident to that 
the extension to those Governments of the 
most liberal financial credits in order that our 
resources may so far as possible be added to 
theirs. 

It will involve the organization and mobili- 
zation of all the material resources of the 
country to supply the materials of war and 
serve the incidental needs of the nation in the 
most abundant and yet the most economical 
and efficient way possible. 

It will involve the immediate full equipment 
of the navy in all respects, but particularly in 
supplying it with the best means of dealing 
with the enemy's submarines. 

It will involve the immediate addition to the 
armed forces of the United States already pro- 
vided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 
men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen 
upon the principle of universal liability to 
service, and also the authorization of sub- 
sequent additional increments of equal force 
so soon as they may be needed and can be 
handled in training. 

It will involve also, of course, the granting 
of adequate credits to the Government, sus- 
tained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be 
sustained by the present generation, by well- 
conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as 
may be equitable by taxation because it seems 
to me that it would be most unwise to base 



1 6 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

the credits which will now be necessary en- 
tirely on money borrowed. 

It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, 
to protect our people so far as we may 
against the very serious hardships and evils 
which would be likely to arise out of the 
inflation which would be produced by vast 
loans. 

In carrying out the measures by which these 
things are to be accomplished we should keep 
constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering 
as little as possible in our own preparation 
and in the equipment of our own military 
forces with the duty — for it will be a very 
practical duty — of supplying the nations 
already at war with Germany with the 
materials which they can obtain only from 
us or by our assistance. They are in the 
field and we should help them in every way 
to be effective there. 

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through 
the several executive departments of the Gov- 
ernment, for the consideration of your com- 
mittees measures for the accomplishment of 
the several objects I have mentioned. I hope 
that it will be your pleasure to deal with them 
as having been framed after very careful 
thought by the branch of the Government 
upon which the responsibility of conducting 
the war and safeguarding the nation will most 
directly fall. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 17 

OUR MOTIVES AND OBJECTS 

While we do these things, these deeply mo- 
mentous things, let us be very clear and make 
very clear to all the world what our motives 
and our objects are. My own thought has 
not been driven from its habitual and normal 
course by the unhappy events of the last two 
months, and I do not believe that the thought 
of the nation has been altered or clouded by 
them. 

I have exactly the same thing in mind now 
that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate 
on the 2 2d of January last; the same that I 
had in mind when I addressed the Congress 
on the 3d of February and on the 26th of 
February. 

Our object now, as then, is to vindicate 
the principles of peace and justice in the life 
of the world as against selfish and autocratic 
power and to set up amongst the really free and 
self -governed peoples of the world such a con- 
cert of purpose and of action as will henceforth 
insure the observance of those principles. 

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable 
where the peace of the world is involved and 
the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to 
that peace and freedom lies in the existence 
of autocratic Governments backed by organ- 
ized force which is controlled wholly by their 
will, not by the will of their people. We have 



1 8 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

seen the last of neutrality in such circum- 
stances. 

We are at the beginning of an age in which 
it will be insisted that the same standards of 
conduct and of responsibility for wrong done 
shall be observed among nations and their 
Governments that are observed among the 
individual citizens of civilized states. 

We have no quarrel with the German peo- 
ple. We have no feeling toward them but one 
of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon 
their impulse that their Government acted in 
entering this war. It was not with their pre- 
vious knowledge or approval. 

It was a war determined upon as wars used 
to be determined upon in the old, unhappy 
days when peoples were nowhere consulted 
by their rulers and wars were provoked and 
waged in the interest of dynasties or of little 
groups of ambitious men who were accus- 
tomed to use their fellow - men as pawns and 
tools. 

Self -governed nations do not fill their neigh- 
bor states with spies or set the course of 
intrigue to bring about some critical post- 
ure of affairs which will give them an op- 
portunity to strike and make conquest. Such 
designs can be successfully worked only under 
cover and where no one has the right to ask 
questions. 

Cunningly contrived plans of deception or 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 19 

aggression, carried, it may be, from generation 
to generation, can be worked out and kept 
from the light only within the privacy of 
courts or behind the carefully guarded con- 
fidences of a narrow and privileged class. They 
are happily impossible where public opinion 
commands and insists upon full information 
concerning all the nation's affairs. 

PEACE THROUGH FREE PEOPLES 

A steadfast concert for peace can never be 
maintained except by a partnership of demo- 
cratic nations. Nq [autocratic Government 
could be trusted to keep faith within it or ob- 
serve its covenants. It must be a league of 
honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue 
would eat its vitals away, the plottings of inner 
circles who could plan what they would and 
render account to no one would be a corruption 
seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can 
hold their purpose and their honor steady to a 
common end and prefer the interests of man- 
kind to any narrow interest of their own. 

Does not every American feel that assur- 
ance has been added to our hope for the future 
peace of the world by the wonderful and heart- 
ening things that have been happening within 
the last few weeks in Russia? 

Russia was known by those who know it 
best to have been always in fact democratic 
at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, 



20 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

in all the intimate relationships of her people 
that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual 
attitude toward life. 

Autocracy that crowned the summit of her 
political structure, long as it had stood and 
terrible as was the reality of its power, was 
not in fact Russian in origin, in character or 
purpose ; and now it has been shaken and the 
great, generous Russian people have been 
added, in all their native majesty and might, 
to the forces that are fighting for freedom in 
the world, for justice and for peace. Here is 
a fit partner for a league of honor. 

One of the things that have served to con- 
vince us that the Prussian autocracy was not 
and could never be our friend is that from the 
very outset of the present war it has filled our 
unsuspecting communities and even our offices 
of Government with spies and set criminal 
intrigues everywhere afoot against our na- 
tional unity of council, our peace within and 
without, our industries and our commerce. 

Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were 
here even before the war began, and it is, un- 
happily, not a matter of conjecture, but a fact 
proved in our courts of justice, that the in- 
trigues which have more than once come per- 
ilously near to disturbing the peace and dislo- 
cating the industries of the country have been 
carried on at the instigation, with the support, 
and even under the personal direction, of offi- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 21 

cial agents of the Imperial German Govern- 
ment accredited to the Government of the 
United States. 

Even in checking these things and trying to 
extirpate them we have sought to put the most 
generous interpretation possible upon them 
because we knew that their source lay, not in 
any hostile feeling or purpose of the German 
people toward us (who were, no doubt, as 
ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but 
only in the selfish designs of a Government 
that did what it pleased and told its people 
nothing. But they have played their part in 
serving to convince us at last that that Govern- 
ment entertains no real friendship for us and 
means to act against our peace and security at 
its convenience. That it means to stir up 
enemies against us at our very doors the inter- 
cepted note to the German Minister at Mexico 
City is eloquent evidence. 

A CHALLENGE OF HOSTILE PURPOSE 

We are accepting this challenge of hostile 
purpose because we know that in such a Gov- 
ernment, following such methods, we can never 
have a friend; and that in the presence of its 
organized power, always lying in wait to ac- 
complish we know not what purpose, there 
can be no assured security for the democratic 
Governments of the world. 

We are now about to accept the gage of 



22 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

battle with this natural foe to liberty, and 
shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the 
nation to check and nullify its pretensions and 
its power. We are glad, now that we see the 
facts with no veil of false pretense about them, 
to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the 
world and for the liberation of its peoples, 
the German people included; for the rights 
of nations great and small and the privilege 
of men everywhere to choose their way of life 
and of obedience. The world must be made 
safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted 
upon the trusted foundations of political 
liberty. 

We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire 
no conquest, no dominion. We seek no in- 
demnities for ourselves, no material compen- 
sation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. 
We are but one of the champions of the rights 
of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those 
rights have been made as secure as the faith 
and the freedom of the nation can make 
them. 

Just because we fight without rancor and 
without selfish objects, seeking nothing for 
ourselves but what we shall wish to share with 
all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, con- 
duct our operations as belligerents without 
passion and ourselves observe with proud 
punctilio the principles of right and of fair 
play we profess to be fighting for. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 23 

I have said nothing of the Governments al- 
lied with the Imperial Government of Germany 
because they have not made war upon us or 
challenged us to defend our right and our 
honor. 

The Austro-Hungarian Government has in- 
deed avowed its unqualified indorsement and 
acceptance of the reckless and lawless sub- 
marine warfare adopted now without disguise 
by the Imperial German Government, and it 
has therefore not been possible for this Govern- 
ment to receive Count Tarnowski, the am- 
bassador recently accredited to this Govern- 
ment by the Imperial and Royal Government 
of Austria-Hungary; but that Government 
has not actually engaged in warfare against 
citizens of the United States on the seas, and 
I take the liberty, for the present at least, of 
postponing a discussion of our relations with 
the authorities at Vienna. 

OPPOSITION TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 
FRIENDSHIP TOWARD THE GERMAN PEOPLE 

We enter this war only where we are clearly 
forced into it because there are no other means 
of defending our rights. 

It will be all the easier for us to conduct 
ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of 
right and fairness because we act without ani- 
mus, not in enmity toward a people or with the 
desire to bring any injury or disadvantage 



24 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

upon them, but only in armed opposition to an 
irresponsible Government which has thrown 
aside all considerations of humanity and of 
right and is running amuck. 

We are, let me say again, the sincere friends 
of the German people, and shall desire nothing 
so much as the early re-establishment of inti- 
mate relations of mutual advantage between 
us — however hard it may be for them, for the 
time being, to believe that this is spoken from 
our hearts. We have borne with their present 
Government through all these bitter months 
because of that friendship — exercising a pa- 
tience and forbearance which would otherwise 
have been impossible. 

We shall, happily, still have an opportunity 
to prove that friendship in our daily attitude 
and actions toward the millions of men and 
women of German birth and native sympathy 
who live amongst us and share our life, and 
we shall be proud to prove it toward all who 
are, in fact, loyal to their neighbors and to the 
Government in the hour of test. They are, 
most of them, as true and loyal Americans as 
if they had never known any other fealty or 
allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with 
us in rebuking and restraining the few who 
may be of a different mind and purpose. If 
there should be disloyalty it will be dealt with 
with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if 
it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 25 

and there and without countenance except 
from a lawless and malignant few. 

RIGHT MORE PRECIOUS THAN PEACE 

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gen- 
tlemen of the Congress, which I have per- 
formed in thus addressing you. There are, it 
may be, many months of fiery trial and sacri- 
fice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead 
this great, peaceful people into war, into the 
most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civili- 
zation itself seeming to be in the balance. 
But the right is more precious than peace, and 
we shall fight for the things which we have 
always carried nearest our hearts — for de- 
mocracy, for the right of those who submit to 
authority to have a voice in their own govern- 
ments, for the rights and liberties of small 
nations, for a universal dominion of right by 
such a concert of free peoples as shall bring 
peace and safety to all nations and make the 
world itself at last free. 

To such a task we can dedicate our lives 
and our fortunes, everything that we are and 
everything that we have, with the pride of 
those who know that the day has come when 
America is privileged to spend her blood and 
her might for the principles that gave her 
birth and happiness and the peace which she 
has treasured. God helping her, she can do no 
other. 



Ill 



A STATE OF WAR 
(The President's Proclamation of April 6, IQ17) 

Whereas, the Congress of the United States, 
in the exercise of the constitutional authority 
vested in them, have resolved by joint resolu- 
tion of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, bearing date this day, that a state of war 
between the United States and the Imperial 
German Government, which has been thrust 
upon the United States, is hereby formally 
declared ; 

Whereas, It is provided by Section 4067 of 
the Revised Statutes as follows : 

Whenever there is declared a war between the United 
States and any foreign nation or Government, or any 
invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted 
or threatened against the territory of the United States 
by any foreign nation or Government, and the President 
makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, 
citizens, denizens or subjects of a hostile nation or Gov- 
ernment being male of the age of fourteen years and 
upward who shall be within the United States and not 
actually naturalized shall be liable to be apprehended, 
restrained secured and removed as alien enemies. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 27 

The President is authorized in any such 
event, by his proclamation thereof or other 
public acts, to direct the conduct to be ob- 
served on the part of the United States tow- 
ard the aliens who become so liable; the 
manner and degree of the restraint to which 
they shall be subject and in what cases and 
upon what security their residence shall be 
permitted and to provide for the removal of 
those who, not being permitted to reside within 
the United States, refuse or neglect to depart 
therefrom, and to establish any such regula- 
tions which are found necessary in the prem- 
ises and for the public safety; 

Whereas, By Sections 4068, 4069, and 4070 
of the Revised Statutes further provision is 
made relative to alien enemies; 

Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, Presi- 
dent of the United States of America, do 
hereby proclaim to all whom it may concern 
that a state of war exists between the United 
States and the Imperial German Government, 
and I do specially direct all officers, civil or 
military, of the United States that they exer- 
cise vigilance and zeal in the discharge of the 
duties incident to such a state of war, and I 
do, moreover, earnestly appeal to all American 
citizens that they, in loyal devotion to their 
country, dedicated from its foundation to the 
principles of liberty and justice, uphold the 
laws of the land and give undivided and will- 



28 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

ing support to those measures which may be 
adopted by the constitutional authorities in 
prosecuting the war to a successful issue and 
in obtaining a secure and just peace ; 

And acting under and by virtue of the au- 
thority vested in me by the Constitution of 
the United States and the said sections of the 
Revised Statutes: 

I do hereby further proclaim and direct that 
the conduct to be observed on the part of the 
United States toward all natives, citizens, deni- 
zens or subjects of Germany, being male, of 
the age of fourteen years and upward, who 
shall be within the United States and not act- 
ually naturalized, who for the purpose of this 
proclamation and under such sections of the 
Revised Statutes are termed alien enemies, 
shall be as follows : 

All alien enemies are enjoined to preserve the peace 
toward the United States and to refrain from crime 
against the public safety and from violating the laws of 
the United States and of the States and Territories 
thereof, and to refrain from actual hostility or giving in- 
formation, aid or comfort to the enemies of the United 
States, and to comply strictly with the regulations which 
are hereby or which may be from time to time promul- 
gated by the President, and so long as they shall conduct 
themselves in accordance with law they shall be undis- 
turbed in the peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupa- 
tions and be accorded the consideration due to all 
peaceful and law-abiding persons, except so far as re- 
strictions may be necessary for their own protection and 
for the safety of the United States, and toward such alien 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 29 

enemies as conduct themselves in accordance with law 
all citizens of the United States are enjoined to preserve 
the peace and to treat them with all such friendliness as 
may be compatible with loyalty and allegiance to the 
United States. 

And all alien enemies who fail to conduct themselves 
as so enjoined, in addition to all other penalties pre- 
scribed by law, shall be liable to restraint or to give 
security or to remove and depart from the United States 
in the manner prescribed by Sections 4069 and 4070 of 
the Revised Statutes and as prescribed in the regulations 
duly promulgated by the President. 

And, pursuant to the authority vested in 
me, I hereby declare and establish the follow- 
ing regulations, which I rind necessary in the 
premises and for the public safety: 

First. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession 
at any time or place any firearms, weapons or imple- 
ment of war, or component parts thereof; ammunition, 
Maxim or other silencer, arms or explosives or material 
used in the manufacture of explosives. 

Second. An alien enemy shall not have in his possession 
at any time or place, or use or operate, any aircraft 
or wireless apparatus, or any form of signaling device, 
or any form of cipher code or any paper, document 
or book written or printed in cipher, or in which there 
may be invisible writing. 

Third. All property found in the possession of an alien 
enemy in violation of the foregoing regulations shall be 
subject to seizure by the United States. 

Fourth. An alien enemy shall not approach or be 
found within one-half of a mile of any Federal or State 
fort, camp, arsenal, aircraft station, Government or 
naval vessel, navy-yard, factory or workshop for the 



3 o IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

manufacture of munitions of war or of any products for 
the use of the army or navy. 

Fifth. An alien enemy shall not write, print or publish 
any attack or threat against the Government or Con- 
gress of the United States, or either branch thereof, or 
against the measures or policy of the United States, or 
against the persons or property of any person in the 
military, naval or civil service of the United States, or 
of the States or Territories, or of the District of Columbia, 
or of the municipal governments therein. 

Sixth. An alien enemy shall not commit or abet any 
hostile acts against the United States, or give informa- 
tion, aid or comfort to its enemies. 

Seventh. An alien enemy shall not reside in or con- 
tinue to reside in, to remain in or enter any locality 
which the President may from time to time designate 
by an executive order as a prohibitive area in which 
residence by an alien enemy shall be found by him 
to constitute a danger to the public peace and safety 
of the United States except by permit from the Presi- 
dent and except under such limitations or restrictions 
as the President may prescribe. 

Eighth. An alien enemy whom the President shall 
have reasonable cause to believe to be aiding or about to 
aid the enemy, or to be at large to the danger of the 
public peace or safety of the United States, or to have 
violated or to be about to violate any of these regulations, 
shall remove to any location designated by the President 
by executive order, and shall not remove therefrom with- 
out permit, or shall depart from the United States if so 
required by the President. 

Ninth. No alien enemy shall depart from the United 
States until he shall have received such permit as the 
President shall prescribe, or except under order of a 
Court, Judge or Justice, under Sections 4069 and 4070 
of the Revised Statutes. 

Tenth. No alien enemy shall land in or enter the. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 31 

United States except under such restrictions and at such 
places as the President may prescribe. 

Eleventh. If necessary to prevent violation of the 
regulations, all alien enemies will be obliged to register. 

Twelfth. An alien enemy whom there may be reason- 
able cause to believe to be aiding or about to aid the 
enemy, or to be at large to the danger of the public 
peace or safety, or who violates or who attempts to 
violate or of whom there is reasonable grounds to believe 
that he is about to violate any regulation to be promul- 
gated by the President or any criminal law of the United 
States or cf the States or Territories thereof, will be 
subject to summary arrest by the United States, by the 
United States Marshal or his deputy or such other offi- 
cers as the President shall designate, and to confinement 
in such penitentiary, prison, jail, military camp, or other 
place of detention as may be directed by the President. 

This proclamation and the regulations herein 
contained shall extend and apply to all land 
and water, continental or insular, in any way 
within the jurisdiction of the United States. 



IV 



"SPEAK, ACT AND SERVE TOGETHER" 
{Message to the American People, April 15, 1917) 

My Fellow Countrymen, — The entrance 
of our own beloved country into the grim and 
terrible war for democracy and human rights 
which has shaken the world creates so many 
problems of national life and action which call 
for immediate consideration and settlement 
that I hope you will permit me to address to 
you a few words of earnest counsel and appeal 
with regard to them. 

We are rapidly putting our navy upon an 
effective war footing and are about to create 
and equip a great army, but these are the sim- 
plest parts of the great task to which we have 
addressed ourselves. There is not a single self- 
ish element, so far as I can see, in the cause 
we are fighting for. We are fighting for what 
we believe and wish to be the rights of man- 
kind and for the future peace and security of 
the world. To do this great thing worthily and 
successfully we must devote ourselves to the 
service without regard to profit or material ad- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 33 

vantage and with an energy and intelligence 
that will rise to the level of the enterprise 
itself. We must realize to the full how great 
the task is and how many things, how many 
kinds and elements of capacity and service and 
self-sacrifice it involves. 

WHAT WE MUST DO 

These, then, are the things we must do, and 
do well, besides fighting — the things without 
which mere fighting would be fruitless : 

We must supply abundant food for ourselves 
and for our armies and our seamen, not only, 
but also for a large part of the nations with 
whom we have now made common cause, in 
whose support and by whose sides we shall be 
fighting. 

We must supply ships by the hundreds out 
of our shipyards to carry to the other side of 
the sea, submarines or no submarines, what 
will every day be needed there, and abundant 
materials out of our fields and our mines and 
our factories with which not only to clothe 
and equip our own forces on land and sea, but 
also to clothe and support our people, for 
whom the gallant fellows under arms can no 
longer work; to help clothe and equip the 
armies with which we are co-operating in Eu- 
rope, and to keep the looms and manufacto- 
ries there in raw material; coal to keep the 
fires going in ships at sea and in the furnaces 



34 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel 
out of which to make arms and ammunition 
both here and there; rails for wornout railways 
back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and 
rolling-stock to take the place of those every- 
day going to pieces; mules, horses, cattle for 
labor and for military service ; everything with 
which the people of England and France and 
Italy and Russia have usually supplied them- 
selves, but cannot now afford the men, the 
materials or the machinery to make. 

GREATER EFFICIENCY 

It is evident to every thinking man that our 
industries, on the farms, in the shipyards, in 
the mines, in the factories, must be made more 
prolific and more efficient than ever, and that 
they must be more economically managed and 
better adapted to the particular requirements 
of our task than they have been; and what I 
want to say is that the men and the women 
who devote their thought and their energy to 
these things will be serving the country and 
conducting the fight for peace and freedom 
just as truly and just as effectively as the men 
on the battle-field or in the trenches. The in- 
dustrial forces of the country, men and women 
alike, will be a great national, a great interna- 
tional, service army — a notable and honored 
host engaged in the service of the nation and 
the world, the efficient friends and saviors of 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 35 

free men everywhere. Thousands, nay, hun- 
dreds of thousands, of men otherwise liable to 
military service will of right and of necessity 
be excused from that service and assigned to 
the fundamental sustaining work of the fields 
and factories and mines, and they will be as 
much part of the great patriotic forces of the 
nation as the men under fire. 

I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing 
this word to the farmers of the country and to 
all who work on the farms : The supreme need 
of our own nation and of the nations with 
which we are co-operating is an abundance of 
supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The im- 
portance of an adequate food-supply, especially 
for the present year, is superlative. Without 
abundant food, alike for the armies and the 
peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise 
upon which we have embarked will break down 
and fail. The world's food reserves are low. 
Not only during the present emergency, but 
for some time after peace shall have come, 
both our own people and a large proportion of 
the people of Europe must rely upon the har- 
vests in America. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE FARMERS 

Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, 
in large measure rest the fate of the war and 
the fate of the nations. May the nation not 
count upon them to omit no step that will in- 



36 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

crease the production of their land or that will 
bring about the most effectual co-operation 
in the sale and distribution of their products? 
The time is short. It is of the most imperative 
importance that everything possible be done, 
and done immediately, to make sure of large 
harvests. I call upon young men and old alike 
and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to 
accept and act upon this duty — to turn in 
hosts to the farms and make certain that no 
pains and no labor is lacking in this great 
matter. 

I particularly appeal to the farmers of the 
South to plant abundant foodstuffs, as well as 
cotton. They can show their patriotism in no 
better or more convincing way than by resist- 
ing the great temptation of the present price 
of cotton and helping, helping upon a great 
scale, to feed the nation and the peoples every- 
where who are fighting for their liberties and 
for our own. The variety of their crops will be 
the visible measure of their comprehension of 
their national duty. 

The Government of the United States and 
the Governments of the several States stand 
ready to co-operate. They will do everything 
possible to assist farmers in securing an ade- 
quate supply of seed, an adequate force of la- 
borers when they are most needed, at harvest- 
time, and the means of expediting shipments 
of fertilizers and farm machinery, as well as 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 37 

of the crops themselves when harvested. The 
course of trade shall be as unhampered as it 
is possible to make it, and there shall be no 
unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food- 
supply by those who handle it on its way to 
the consumer. This is our opportunity to 
demonstrate the efficiency of a great democ- 
racy, and we shall not fall short of it ! 

THE DUTY OF MIDDLEMEN 

This let me say to the middlemen of every 
sort, whether they are handling our foodstuffs 
or the raw materials of manufacture or the 
products of our mills and factories : The eyes 
of the country will be especially upon you. 
This is your opportunity for signal service, 
efficient and disinterested. The country ex- 
pects you, as it expects all others, to forego 
unusual profits, to organize and expedite ship- 
ments of supplies of every kind, but especially 
of food, with an eye to the service you are 
rendering and in the spirit of those who enlist 
in the ranks, for their people, not for them- 
selves. I shall confidently expect you to de- 
serve and win the confidence of people of every 
sort and station. 

THE MEN OF THE RAILWAYS 

To the men who run the railways of the 
country, whether they be managers or opera- 
tive employees, let me say that the railways are 



38 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

the arteries of the nation's life and that upon 
them rests the immense responsibility of seeing 
to it that those arteries suffer no obstruction 
of any kind, no inefficiency or slackened power. 
To the merchant let me suggest the motto, 
"Small profits and quick service," and to the 
shipbuilder the thought that the life of the war 
depends upon him. The food and the war 
supplies must be carried across the seas, no 
matter how many ships are sent to the bottom. 
The places of those that go down must be sup- 
plied, and supplied at once. To the miner let 
me say that he stands where the farmer does: 
the work of the world waits on him. If he 
slackens or fails, armies and statesmen are 
helpless. He also is enlisted in the great Ser- 
vice Army. The manufacturer does not need 
to be told, I hope, that the nation looks to him 
to speed and perfect every process ; and I want 
only to remind his employees that their service 
is absolutely indispensable and is counted on 
by every man who loves the country and its 
liberties. 

Let me suggest also that every one who cre- 
ates or cultivates a garden helps, and helps 
greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding of 
the nations; and that every housewife who 
practises strict economy puts herself in the 
ranks of those who serve the nation. This is 
the time for America to correct her unpardon- 
able fault of wastefulness and extravagance. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 39 

Let every man and every woman assume the 
duty of careful, provident use and expenditure 
as a public duty, as a dictate of patriotism 
which no one can now expect ever to be ex- 
cused or forgiven for ignoring. 

THE SUPREME TEST 

In the hope that this statement of the needs 
of the nation and of the world in this hour of 
supreme crisis may stimulate those to whom it 
comes and remind all who need reminder of 
the solemn duties of a time such as the world 
has never seen before, I beg that all editors 
and publishers everywhere will give as promi- 
nent publication and as wide circulation as 
possible to this appeal. I venture to suggest 
also to all advertising agencies that they would 
perhaps render a very substantial and timely 
service to the country if they would give it 
widespread repetition. And I hope that clergy- 
men will not think the theme of it an unworthy 
or inappropriate subject of comment and hom- 
ily from their pulpits. 

The supreme test of the nation has come. 
We must all speak, act and serve together. 

4 



V 



THE CONSCRIPTION PROCLAMATION 
(May 18, 1917) 

Whereas, Congress has enacted and the Pres- 
ident has on the 18th day of May, 191 7, ap- 
proved a law which contains the following 
provisions : 

Section 5. That all male persons between 
the ages of twenty-one and thirty, both inclu- 
sive, shall be subject to registration in accord- 
ance with regulations to be prescribed by the 
President, and upon proclamation by the Presi- 
ident or other public notice given by him or 
by his direction, stating the time and place of 
such registration, it shall be the duty of all 
persons of the designated ages, except officers 
and enlisted men of the Regular Army, the 
Navy and the National Guard and Naval Mi- 
litia while in the service of the United States, 
to present themselves for and submit to regis- 
tration under the provisions of this act. 

And every such person shall be deemed to 
have notice of the requirements of this act 
upon the publication of said proclamation or 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 41 

other notice as aforesaid given by the President 
or by his direction. 

THE PENALTY FOR FAILURE 

And any person who shall wilfully fail or 
refuse to present himself for registration or to 
submit thereto as herein provided, shall be 
guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, upon con- 
viction in the District Court of the United 
States having jurisdiction thereof, be punished 
by imprisonment for not more than one year,, 
and shall thereupon be duly registered. 

Provided, that in the call of the docket pref- 
erence shall be given, in courts trying the same, 
to the trial of criminal proceedings under this 
act. 

Provided, further, that persons shall be sub- 
ject to registration as herein provided who 
shall have attained their twenty-first birthday 
and who shall not have attained their thirty- 
first birthday on or before the day set for the 
registration, and all persons so registered shall 
be and remain subject to draft into the forces 
hereby authorized unless exempted or excused 
therefrom, as in this act provided. 

Provided, further, that in the case of tempo- 
rary absence from actual place of legal resi- 
dence of any person liable to registration as 
provided herein, such registration may be made 
by mail under regulations to be prescribed by 
the President. 



42 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

THE WORK OF REGISTRATION 

Section 6. That the President is hereby au- 
thorized to utilize the service of any or all de- 
partments and any or all officers or agents of 
the United States and of the several States, 
Territories and the District of Columbia and 
subdivisions thereof, in the execution of this 
act, and all officers and agents of the United 
States and of the several States, Territories 
and subdivisions thereof, and of the District of 
Columbia, and all persons designated or ap- 
pointed under regulations prescribed by the 
President, whether such appointments are made 
by the President himself or by the Governor or 
other officer of any State or Territory to per- 
form any duty in the execution of this act, are 
hereby required to perform such duty as the 
President shall order or direct, and all such 
officers and agents and persons so designated 
or appointed shall hereby have full authority 
for all acts done by them in the execution of 
this act, by the direction of the President. 
Correspondence in the execution of this act 
may be carried in penalty envelopes bearing 
the frank of the War Department. 

NEGLECT OF DUTY AND FRAUD 

Any person charged, as herein provided, with 
the duty of carrying into effect any of the pro- 
visions of this act or the regulations made or 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 43 

directions given thereunder who shall fail or 
neglect to perform such duty, and any person 
charged with such duty or having and exercis- 
ing any authority under said act, regulations 
or directions, who shall knowingly make or be 
a party to the making of any false or incorrect 
registration, physical examination, exemption, 
enlistment, enrolment or muster. 

And any person who shall make or be a party 
to the making of any false statement or certifi- 
cate as to the fitness or liability of himself or 
any other person for service under the provi- 
sions of this act, or regulations made by the 
President thereunder, or otherwise evades or 
aids another to evade the requirements of this 
act or of said regulations, or who, in any man- 
ner, shall fail or neglect fully to perform any 
duty required of him in the execution of this act, 
shall, if not subject to military law, be guilty 
of a misdemeanor and upon conviction in the 
District Court of the United States having ju- 
risdiction thereof be punished by imprisonment 
for not more than one year, or, if subject to 
military law, shall be tried by court martial 
and suffer such punishment as a court martial 
may direct. 

A CALL TO GOVERNORS 

Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, Presi- 
dent of the United States, do call upon the 
Governor of each of the several States and 



44 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

Territories, the Board of Commissioners of 
the District of Columbia and all officers 
and agents of the several States and Terri- 
tories, of the District of Columbia, and of 
the counties and municipalities therein, to 
perform certain duties in the execution of 
the foregoing law, which duties will be com- 
municated to them directly in regulations of 
even date herewith. 

And I do further proclaim and give notice 
to all persons subject to registration in the 
several States and in the District of Columbia, 
in accordance with the above law, that the 
time and place of such registration shall be 
between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on the 5th day 
of June, 191 7, at the registration place in the 
precinct wherein they have their permanent 
homes. 

Those who shall have attained their twenty- 
first birthday and who shall not have attained 
their thirty-first birthday on or before the day 
here named are required to register, excepting 
only officers and enlisted men of the Regular 
Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the 
National Guard and Naval Militia while in 
the service of the United States, and officers 
in the Officers 7 Reserve Corps and enlisted men 
in the enlisted Reserve Corps while in active 
service. In the Territories of Alaska, Hawaii 
and Porto Rico a day for registration will be 
named in a later proclamation. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 45 

REGISTRATION BY MAIL 

And I do hereby charge those who, through 
sickness, shall be unable to present them- 
selves for registration that they apply on or 
before the day of registration to the County 
Clerk of the county where they may be for 
instructions as to how they may be registered 
by agent. 

Those who expect to be absent on the day 
named from the counties in which they have 
their permanent homes may register by mail, 
but their mailed registration cards must reach 
the places in which they have their perma- 
nent homes by the day named herein. They 
should apply as soon as practicable to the 
County Clerk of the county wherein they may 
be for instructions as to how they may accom- 
plish their registration by mail. 

In case such persons as, through sickness or 
absence, may be unable to present themselves 
personally for registration shall be sojourning 
in cities of over 30,000 population, they shall 
apply to the City Clerk of the city wherein 
they may be sojourning rather than to the 
Clerk of the county. 

The Clerks of counties and of cities of over 
30,000 population, in which numerous applica- 
tions from the sick and from non-residents are 
expected, are authorized to establish such sub- 
agencies and to employ and deputize such cler- 



46 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

ical force as may be necessary to accommodate 
these applications. 

THE WHOLE NATION AN ARMY 

The Power against which we are arrayed has 
sought to impose its will upon the world by 
force. To this end it has increased armament 
until it has changed the face of war. In the 
sense in which we have been wont to think of 
armies there are no armies in this struggle, 
there are entire nations armed. 

Thus, the men who remain to till the soil 
and man the factories are no less a part of the 
army that is in France than the men beneath 
the battle flags. 

It must be so with us. It is not an army 
that we must shape and train for war — it is a 
Nation. To this end our people must draw 
close in one compact front against a common 
foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues 
a private purpose. All must pursue one pur- 
pose. The Nation needs all men, but it needs 
each man, not in the field that will most pleas- 
ure him, but in the endeavor that will best 
serve the common good. 

Thus, though a sharpshooter pleases to op- 
erate a trip-hammer for the forging of great 
guns, and an expert machinist desires to march 
with the flag, the Nation is being served only 
when the sharpshooter marches and the ma- 
chinist remains at his levers. The whole Na- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 47 

tion must be a team, in which each man shall 
play the part for which he is best fitted. 

NOT A DRAFT OF THE UNWILLING 

To this end Congress has provided that the 
Nation shall be organized for war by selection, 
that each man shall be classified for service in 
the place to which it shall best serve the gen- 
eral good to call him. 

The significance of this cannot be overstated. 
It is a new thing in our history and a landmark 
in our progress. It is a new manner of accept- 
ing and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves 
with thoughtful devotion to the common pur- 
pose of us all. It is in no sense a conscription 
of the unwilling. It is, rather, selection from 
a Nation which has volunteered in mass. 

It is no more a choosing of those who shall 
march with the colors than it is a selection of 
those who shall serve an equally necessary and 
devoted purpose in the industries that lie be- 
hind the battle-lines. 

The day here named is the time upon which 
all shall present themselves for assignment to 
their tasks. It is for that reason destined to 
be remembered as one of the most conspicuous 
moments in our history. It is nothing less 
than the day upon which the manhood of the 
country shall step forward in one solid rank in 
defense of the ideals to which this Nation is 
consecrated. It is important to those ideals, 



48 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

no less than to the pride of this generation in 
manifesting its devotion to them, that there be 
no gaps in the ranks. 

DAY OF PATRIOTIC DEVOTION 

It is essential that the day be approached in 
thoughtful apprehension of its significance and 
that we accord to it the honor and the mean- 
ing that it deserves. Our industrial need pre- 
scribes that it be not made a technical holiday, 
but the stern sacrifice that is before us urges 
that it be carried in all our hearts as a great 
day of patriotic devotion and obligation, when 
the duty shall lie upon every man, whether he 
is himself to be registered or not, to see to it 
that the name of every male person of the des- 
ignated ages is written on these lists of honor. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my 
hand and caused the seal of the United States 
to be affixed. 

Done at the city of Washington this 18th 
day of May, in the year of our Lord, 191 7, and 
of the independence of the United States of 
America the one hundred and forty-first. 

By the President : 

Robert Lansing, 

Secretary of State. 



VI 

CONSERVING THE NATION'S FOOD 
(May iq, 1917) 

It is very desirable, in order to prevent mis- 
understanding or alarms and to assure co-op- 
eration in a vital matter, that the country 
should understand exactly the scope and pur- 
pose of the very great powers which I have 
thought it necessary, in the circumstances, to 
ask the Congress to put in my hands with re- 
gard to our food-supplies. 

Those powers are very great, indeed, but 
they are no greater than it has proved neces- 
sary to lodge in the other Governments which 
are conducting this momentous war, and their 
object is stimulation and conservation, not ar- 
bitrary restraint or injurious interference with 
the normal processes of production. They are 
intended to benefit and assist the farmer and all 
those who play a legitimate part in the prepara- 
tion, distribution and marketing of foodstuffs. 

A SHARP LINE OF DISTINCTION 

It is proposed to draw a sharp line of dis- 
tinction between the normal activities of the 



50 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

Government, represented in the Department 
of Agriculture, in reference to food production, 
conservation and marketing, on the one hand, 
and the emergency activities necessitated by 
the war, in reference to the regulation of food 
distribution and consumption, on the other. 

All measures intended directly to extend the 
normal activities of the Department of Agri- 
culture, in reference to the production, conser- 
vation and the marketing of farm crops, will 
be administered, as in normal times, through 
that department; and the powers asked for 
over distribution and consumption, over ex- 
ports, imports, prices, purchase and requisition 
of commodities, storing and the like, which 
may require regulation during the war, will be 
placed in the hands of a Commissioner of Food 
Administration, appointed by the President 
and directly responsible to him. 

THE END TO BE ATTAINED 

The objects sought to be served by the leg- 
islation asked for are: Full inquiry into the 
existing available stocks of foodstuffs and into 
the costs and practices of the various food pro- 
ducing and distributing trades ; the prevention 
of all unwarranted hoarding of every kind, and 
of the control of foodstuffs by persons who are 
not in any legitimate sense producers, dealers 
or traders; the requisition, when necessary for 
public use, of food supplies and of the equip- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 51 

ment necessary for handling them properly; 
the licensing of wholesome and legitimate mix- 
tures and milling percentages, and the prohi- 
bition of the unnecessary or wasteful use of 
foods. 

Authority is asked also to establish prices, 
but not in order to limit the profits of the 
farmers., but only to guarantee to them, when 
necessary, a minimum price, which will insure 
them a profit where they are asked to attempt 
new crops, and to secure the consumer against 
extortion by breaking up corners and attempts 
at speculation when they occur, by fixing tem- 
porarily a reasonable price at which middle- 
men must sell. 

THE FIXING OF PRICES 

I have asked Mr. Herbert Hoover to under- 
take this all-important task of food adminis- 
tration. He has expressed his willingness to do 
so, on condition that he is to receive no pay- 
ment for his services, and that the whole of the 
force under him, exclusive of clerical assistance, 
shall be employed, as far as possible, upon the 
same volunteer basis. 

He has expressed his confidence that this 
difficult matter of food administration can be 
successfully accomplished through the vol- 
untary co-operation and direction of legiti- 
mate distributers of foodstuffs and with the 
help of the women of the country. 



52 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

Although it is absolutely necessary that un- 
questionable powers shall be placed in my 
hands, in order to insure the success of this 
administration of the food-supplies of the coun- 
try, I am confident that the exercise of those 
powers will be necessary only in the few cases 
where some small and selfish minority proves 
unwilling to put the Nation's interests above 
personal advantage, and that the whole coun- 
try will heartily support Mr. Hoover's efforts 
by supplying the necessary volunteer agencies 
throughout the country for the intelligent con- 
trol of food consumption, and securing the 
co-operation of the most capable leaders of the 
very interests most directly affected, that the 
exercise of the powers deputed to him will rest 
very successfully upon the good- will and co-op- 
eration of the people themselves, and that the 
ordinary economic machinery of the country 
will be left substantially undisturbed. 

NO FEAR OF BUREAUCRACY 

The proposed food administration is intended, 
of course, only to meet a manifest emergency 
and to continue only while the war lasts. Since 
it will be composed for the most part of volun- 
teers, there need be no fear of the possibility 
of a permanent bureaucracy arising out of it. 

All control of consumption will disappear 
when the emergency has passed. It is with 
that object in view that the Administration 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 53 

considers it to be of pre-eminent importance 
that the existing associations of producers and 
distributers of foodstuffs should be mobilized 
and made use of on a volunteer basis. The 
successful conduct of the projected food ad- 
ministration, by such means, will be the finest 
possible demonstration of the willingness, the 
ability and the efficiency of democracy and of 
its justified reliance upon the freedom of indi- 
vidual initiative. 

The last thing that any American could con- 
template with equanimity would be the intro- 
duction of anything resembling Prussian au- 
tocracy into the food control of this country. 

It is of vital interest and importance to every 
man who produces food and to every man who 
takes part in its distribution that these policies, 
thus liberally administered, should succeed and 
succeed altogether. It is only in that way that 
we can prove it to be absolutely unnecessary 
to resort to the rigorous and drastic measures 
which have proved to be necessary in some of 
the European countries. 



VII 

AN ANSWER TO CRITICS 
(May 22, 1917) 

In the following letter, addressed to Repre- 
sentative Heflin, Democrat, of Alabama, Presi- 
dent Wilson replies to criticisms regarding his 
position with regard to the war and its objects : 

It is incomprehensible to me how any frank 
or honest person could doubt or question my 
position with regard to the war and its ob- 
jects. I have again and again stated the very 
serious and long-continued wrongs which the 
Imperial German Government has perpetrated 
against the rights, the commerce and the citi- 
zens of the United States. The list is long and 
overwhelming. No Nation that respected it- 
self or the rights of humanity could have borne 
those wrongs any longer. 

Our objects in going into the war have been 
stated with equal clearness. The whole of the 
conception which I take to be the conception 
of our fellow-countrymen with regard to the 
outcome of the war and the terms of its settle- 
ment, I set forth with the utmost explicitness 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 55 

in an address to the Senate of the United States 
on the 2 2d of January last. Again, in my mes- 
sage to Congress on the 2d of April last, those 
objects were stated in unmistakable terms. 

I can conceive no purpose in seeking to be- 
cloud this matter except the purpose of weak- 
ening the hands of the Government and mak- 
ing the part which the United States is to play 
in this great struggle for human liberty an in- 
efficient and hesitating part. 

We have entered the war for our own rea- 
sons and with our own objects clearly stated, 
and shall forget neither the reasons nor the 
objects. There is no hate in our hearts for 
the German people, but there is a resolve 
which cannot be shaken even by misrepre- 
sentation, to overcome the pretensions of the 
autocratic Government which acts upon pur- 
poses to which the German people have never 
consented. 

5 



VIII 

MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 
{May 30, 1917) 

In one sense the great struggle into which we 
have now entered is an American struggle, 
because it is in defense of American honor and 
American rights, but it is something even 
greater than that; it is a world struggle. It 
is the struggle of men who love liberty every- 
where, and in this cause America will show 
herself greater than ever because she will rise 
to a greater thing. 

The program has conferred an unmerited 
dignity upon the remarks I am going to make 
by calling them an address, because I am 
not here to deliver an address [said the Presi- 
dent]. I am here merely to show in my offi- 
cial capacity the sympathy of this great Gov- 
ernment with the object of this occasion, and 
also to speak just a word of the sentiment that 
is in my own heart. 

Any memorial day of this sort is, of course, 
a day touched with sorrowful memory, and 
yet I for one do not see how we can have any 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 57 

thought of pity for the men whose memory we 
honor to-day. I do not pity them. I envy 
them, rather, because their great work for lib- 
erty is accomplished, and we are in the midst 
of a work unfinished, testing our strength where 
their strength already has been tested. 

A HERITAGE FROM THE DEAD 

There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a 
touch of reassurance also in a day like this, 
because we know how the men of America 
have responded to the call of the cause of lib- 
erty, and it fills our mind with a perfect assur- 
ance that that response will come again in equal 
measures, with equal majesty and with a result 
which will hold the attention of all mankind. 

When you reflect upon it, these men who 
died to preserve the Union died to preserve 
the instrument which we are now using to 
serve the world — a free nation espousing the 
cause of human liberty. In one sense the 
great struggle into which we have now entered 
is an American struggle, because it is in the 
sense of American honor and American rights, 
but it is something even greater than that; 
it is a world struggle. It is a struggle of men 
who love liberty everywhere ; and in this cause 
America will show herself greater than ever 
because she will rise to a greater thing. 

We have said in the beginning that we 
planned this great Government that men who 



58 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

wish freedom might have a place of refuge and 
a place where their hope could be realized, 
and now, having established such a Govern- 
ment, having preserved such a Government, 
having vindicated the power of such a Gov- 
ernment, we are saying to all mankind, "We 
did not set this Government up in order that 
we might have a selfish and separate liberty, 
for we are now ready to come to your assist- 
ance and fight out upon the fields of the 
world the cause of human liberty." 

America's full fruition 

In this thing America attains her full dig- 
nity and the full fruition of her great purpose. 

No man can be glad that such things have 
happened as we have witnessed in these last 
fateful years, but perhaps it may be permitted 
to us to be glad that we have an opportunity 
to show the principles which we profess to be 
living — principles which live in our hearts — 
and to have a chance by the pouring out of our 
blood and treasure to vindicate the things 
which we have professed. For, my friends, 
the real fruition of life is to do the things we 
have said we wished to do. There are times 
when words seem empty and only action seems 
great. Such a time has come, and in the 
providence of God America will once more 
have an opportunity to show to the world that 
she was born to serve mankind. 



IX 

A STATEMENT TO RUSSIA 
(June 9, 1917) 

In view of the approaching visit of the Amer- 
ican delegation to Russia to express the deep 
friendship of the American people for the people 
of Russia and to discuss the best and most 
practical means of co-operation between the 
two peoples in carrying the present struggle 
for the freedom of all peoples to a successful 
consummation, it seems opportune and appro- 
priate that I should state again, in the light of 
this new partnership, the objects the United 
States has had in mind in entering the war. 
Those objects have been very much beclouded 
during the past few weeks by mistaken and 
misleading statements, and the issues at stake 
are too momentous, too tremendous, too sig- 
nificant for the whole human race to permit 
any misinterpretations or misunderstandings, 
however slight, to remain uncorrected for a 
moment. 

The war has begun to go against Germany, 
and in their desperate desire to escape the in- 



60 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

evitable ultimate defeat, those who are in au- 
thority in Germany are using every possible 
instrumentality, are making use even of the 
influence of groups and parties among their 
own subjects to whom they have never been 
just or fair, or even tolerant, to promote a 
propaganda on both sides of the sea which will 
preserve for them their influence at home and 
their power abroad, to the undoing of the very 
men they are using. 

AMERICA SEEKS NO CONQUEST 

The position of America in this war is so 
clearly avowed that no man can be excused 
for mistaking it. She seeks no material profit 
or aggrandizement of any kind. She is fight- 
ing for no advantage or selfish object of her 
own, but for the liberation of peoples every- 
where from the aggressions of autocratic force. 
The ruling classes in Germany have begun of 
late to profess a like liberality and justice of 
purpose, but only to preserve the power they 
have set up in Germany and the selfish advan- 
tages which they have wrongly gained for them- 
selves and their private projects of power all 
the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond. 
Government after Government has, by their 
influence, without open conquest of its terri- 
tory, been linked together in a net of intrigue 
directed against nothing less than the peace 
and liberty of the world. The meshes of that 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 61 

intrigue must be broken, but cannot be broken 
unless wrongs already done are undone; and 
adequate measures must be taken to prevent 
it from ever again being rewoven or repaired. 

Of course the Imperial German Government 
and those whom it is using for their own undo- 
ing are seeking to obtain pledges that the war 
will end in the restoration of the status quo 
ante. It was the status quo ante out of which 
this iniquitous war issued forth, the power of 
the Imperial German Government within the 
empire and its widespread domination and in- 
fluence outside of that empire. That status 
must be altered in such fashion as to prevent any- 
such hideous thing from ever happening again. 

THE PRINCIPLES THAT ARE INVOLVED 

We are fighting for the liberty, self-govern- 
ment and the undictated development of all 
peoples, and every feature of the settlement 
that concludes this war must be conceived and 
executed for that purpose. Wrongs must first 
be righted and then adequate safeguards must 
be created to prevent their being committed 
again. We ought not to consider remedies 
merely because they have a pleasing and sonor- 
ous sound. Practical questions can be settled 
only by practical means. Phrases will not ac- 
complish the result. Effective readjustments 
will; and whatever readjustments are neces- 
sary must be made. 



62 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

But they must follow a principle, and that 
principle is plain : 

No people must be forced under sovereignty 
under which it does not wish to live. 

No territory must change hands except for 
the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a 
fair chance of life and liberty. 

No indemnities must be insisted on except 
those that constitute payment for manifest 
wrongs done. 

No readjustments of power must be made 
except such as will tend to secure the future 
peace of the world and the future welfare and 
happiness of its peoples. 

And then the free peoples of the world must 
draw together in some common covenant, some 
genuine and practical co-operation, that will in 
effect combine their force to secure peace and 
justice in the dealings of nations with one 
another. The brotherhood of mankind must 
no longer be a fair but empty phrase; it must 
be given a structure of force and reality. The 
nations must realize their common life and ef- 
fect a workable partnership to secure that life 
against the aggressions of autocratic and self- 
pleasing power. 

For these things we can afford to pour out 
blood and treasure. For these are the things we 
have always professed to desire, and unless we 
pour out blood and treasure now and succeed, 
we may never be able to unite or show con- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 63 

quering force again in the great cause of hu- 
man liberty. The day has come to conquer or 
submit. If the forces of autocracy can divide 
us, they will overcome us ; if we stand together, 
victory is certain and the liberty which victory 
will secure. 

We can afford, then, to be generous, but we 
cannot afford then or now to be weak or omit 
any single guarantee of justice and security. 



X 

FLAG-DAY ADDRESS 
(June 14, 1917) 

My Fellow-citizens, — We meet to cele- 
brate Flag Day because this flag which we 
honor and under which we serve is the emblem 
of our unity, our power, our thought and pur- 
pose as a nation. It has no other character 
than that which we give it from generation, to 
generation. The choices are ours. It floats 
in majestic silence above the hosts that exe- 
cute those choices, whether in peace or in war. 
And yet, though silent, it speaks to us — 
speaks to us of the past, of the men and women 
who went before us and of the records they 
wrote upon it. We celebrate the day of its 
birth ; and from its birth until now it has wit- 
nessed a great history, has floated on high the 
symbol of great events, of a great plan of life 
worked out by a great people. We are about 
to carry it into battle, to lift it where it will 
draw the fire of our enemies. We are about to 
bid thousands, hundreds of thousands, it may 
be millions, of our men — the young, the strong, 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 65 

the capable men of the nation — to go forth 
and die beneath it on fields of blood far away — 
for what? For some unaccustomed thing? For 
something for which it has never sought the 
fire before? American armies were never be- 
fore sent across the seas. Why are they sent 
now? For some new purpose, for which this 
great flag has never been carried before, or for 
some old, familiar, heroic purpose for which it 
has seen men, its own men, die on every battle- 
field upon which Americans have borne arms 
since the Revolution ? 

These are questions which must be answered. 
We are Americans. We in our turn serve 
America, and can serve her with no private 
purpose. We must use her flag as she has al- 
ways used it. We are accountable at the bar 
of history and must plead in utter frankness 
what purpose it is we seek to serve. 

WHY WE ARE AT WAR 

It is plain enough how we were forced into 
the war. The extraordinary insults and ag- 
gressions of the Imperial German Government 
left us no self-respecting choice but to take up 
arms in defense of our rights as a free people 
and of our honor as a sovereign Government. 
The military masters of Germany denied us 
the right to be neutral. They filled our unsus- 
pecting communities with vicious spies and 
conspirators and sought to corrupt the opinion 



66 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

of our people in their own behalf. When they 
found that they could not do that, their agents 
diligently spread sedition among us and sought 
to draw our own citizens from their allegiance 
— and some of those agents were men con- 
nected with the official embassy of the Ger- 
man Government itself here in our own capital. 
They sought by violence to destroy our own 
industries and arrest our commerce. They 
tried to incite Mexico to take up arms against 
us and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance 
with her — and that, not by indirection, but by 
direct suggestion from the Foreign Office in Ber- 
lin. They impudently denied us the use of the 
seas and repeatedly executed their threat that 
they would send to their death any of our people 
who ventured to approach the coasts of Eu- 
rope. And many of our own people were cor- 
rupted. Men began to look upon their own 
neighbors with suspicion and to wonder, in 
their hot resentment and surprise, whether 
there was any community in which hostile in- 
trigue did not lurk. What great nation, in 
such circumstances, would not have taken up 
arms? Much as we had desired peace, it was 
denied us, and not of our own choice. This 
flag under which we serve would have been 
dishonored had we withheld our hand. 

But that is only part of the story. We 
know now as clearly as we knew before we 
were ourselves engaged that we are not the 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 67 

enemies of the German people and that they 
are not our enemies. They did not originate 
or desire this hideous war or wish that we 
should be drawn into it; and we are vaguely 
conscious that we are fighting their cause, as 
they will some day see it, as well as our own. 
They are themselves in the grip of the same 
sinister power that has now at last stretched 
its ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. 
The whole world is at war because the whole 
world is in the grip of that power and is trying 
out the great battle which shall determine 
whether it is to be brought under its mastery 
or fling itself free. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONFLICT 

The war was begun by the military masters 
of Germany, who proved to be also the masters 
of Austria-Hungary. These men have never 
regarded nations as peoples, men, women 
and children of like blood and frame as them- 
selves, for whom governments existed and in 
whom governments had their life. They have 
regarded them merely as serviceable organiza- 
tions which they could by force or intrigue 
bend or corrupt to their own purpose. They 
have regarded the smaller states, in particular, 
and the peoples who could be overwhelmed by 
force, as their natural tools and instruments of 
domination. Their purpose has long been 
avowed. The statesmen of other nations, to 



68 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

whom that purpose was incredible, paid little 
attention; regarded what German professors 
expounded in their class-rooms and German 
writers set forth to the world as the goal of 
German policy as rather the dream of minds 
detached from practical affairs, as preposterous 
private conceptions of German destiny, than as 
the actual plans of responsible rulers; but the 
rulers of Germany themselves knew all the 
while what concrete plans, what well-advanced 
intrigues, lay back of what the professors and 
the writers were saying, and were glad to go 
forward unmolested, filling the thrones of Bal- 
kan states with German princes, putting Ger- 
man officers at the service of Turkey to drill 
her armies and make interest with her Gov- 
ernment, developing plans of sedition and re- 
bellion in India and Egypt, setting their fires 
in Persia. The demands made by Austria upon 
Serbia were a mere single step in a plan which 
compassed Europe and Asia, from Berlin to 
Bagdad. They hoped those demands might 
not arouse Europe, but they meant to press 
them whether they did or not, for they thought 
themselves ready for the final issue of arms. 

THE PLAN OF CONQUEST 

Their plan was to throw a broad belt of Ger- 
man military power and political control across 
the very center of Europe and beyond the Med- 
iterranean into the very heart of Asia; and 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 69 

Austria-Hungary was to be as much their tool 
and pawn as Serbia or Bulgaria or Turkey or 
the ponderous states of the East. Austria- 
Hungary, indeed, was to become part of the 
central German Empire, absorbed and domi- 
nated by the same forces and influences that 
had originally cemented the German states 
themselves. The dream had its heart at Ber- 
lin. It could have had a heart nowhere else! 
It rejected the idea of solidarity of race entirely. 
The choice of peoples played no part in it at 
all. It contemplated binding together racial 
and political units which could be kept together 
only by force — Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, 
Rumanians, Turks, Armenians — the proud 
states of Bohemia and Hungary, the stout little 
commonwealths of the Balkans, the indomi- 
table Turks, the subtile peoples of the East. 
These peoples did not wish to be united. They 
ardently desired to direct their own affairs, 
would be satisfied only by undisputed inde- 
pendence. They could be kept quiet only by 
the presence or the constant threat of armed 
men. They would live under a common power 
only by sheer compulsion and await the day of 
revolution. But the German military states- 
men had reckoned with all that and were 
ready to deal with it in their own way. 

And they have actually carried the greater 
part of that amazing plan into execution! 
Look how things stand. Austria is at their 



70 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

mercy. It has acted, not upon its own initia- 
tive or upon the choice of its own people, but 
at Berlin's dictation, ever since the war began. 
Its people now desire peace, but cannot have 
it until leave is granted from Berlin. The so- 
called Central Powers are, in fact, but a single 
Power. Serbia is at its mercy, should its 
hand be but for a moment freed. Bulgaria 
has consented to its will, and Rumania is 
overrun. The Turkish armies, which Germans 
trained, are serving Germany, certainly not 
themselves, and the guns of German warships 
lying in the harbor at Constantinople remind 
Turkish statesmen every day that they have 
no choice but to take their orders from Berlin. 
From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf the net is 
spread. 

THE TALK OF PEACE 

Is it not easy to understand the eagerness 
for peace that has been manifested from Berlin 
ever since the snare was set and sprung? 
Peace, peace, peace has been the talk of her 
Foreign Office for now a year and more; not 
peace upon her own initiative, but upon the 
initiative of the nations over which she now 
deems herself to hold the advantage. A little 
of the talk has been public, but most of it has 
been private. Through all sorts of channels it 
has come to me, and in all sorts of guises, but 
never with the terms disclosed which the Ger- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 71 

man Government would be willing to accept. 
That Government has other valuable pawns 
in its hands besides those I have mentioned. 
It still holds a valuable part of France, though 
with slowly relaxing grasp, and practically the 
whole of Belgium. Its armies press close upon 
Russia and overrun Poland at their will. It 
cannot go farther; it dare not go back. It 
wishes to close its bargain before it is too late, 
and it has little left to offer for the pound of 
flesh it will demand. 

The military masters under whom Germany 
is bleeding see very clearly to what point Fate 
has brought them. If they fall back or are 
forced back an inch, their power both abroad 
and at home will fall to pieces like a house of 
cards. It is their power at home they are 
thinking about now more than their power 
abroad. It is that power which is trembling 
under their very feet; and deep fear has en- 
tered their hearts. They have but one chance 
to perpetuate their military power, or even 
their controlling political influence. If they 
can secure peace now, with the immense ad- 
vantages still in their hands which they have 
up to this point apparently gained, they will 
have justified themselves before the German 
people; they will have gained by force what 
they promised to gain by it — an immense ex- 
pansion of German power, an immense enlarge- 
ment of German industrial and commercial 

6 



72 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

opportunities. Their prestige will be secure, 
and with their prestige their political power. 
If they fail, their people will thrust them aside; 
a government accountable to the people them- 
selves will be set up in Germany, as it has been 
in England, in the United States, in France, 
and in all the great countries of the modern 
time except Germany. If they succeed they 
are safe and Germany and the world are un- 
done; if they fail Germany is saved and the 
world will be at peace. If they succeed, Amer- 
ica will fall within the menace. We and all 
the rest of the world must remain armed, as 
they will remain, and must make ready for the 
next step in their aggression; if they fail, the 
world may unite for peace and Germany may 
be of the union. 

THE PRESENT AIM OF GERMANY 

Do you not now understand the new intrigue, 
the intrigue for peace, and why the masters of 
Germany do not hesitate to use any agency 
that promises to effect their purpose, the de- 
ceit of the nations? Their present particular 
aim is to deceive all those who throughout the 
world stand for the rights of peoples and the 
self-government of nations; for they see what 
immense strength the forces of justice and of 
liberalism are gathering out of this war. They 
are employing liberals in their enterprise. They 
are using men, in Germany and without, as 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 73 

their spokesmen whom they have hitherto de- 
spised and oppressed, using them for their own 
destruction — socialists, the leaders of labor, 
the thinkers they have hitherto sought to si- 
lence. Let them once succeed and these men, 
now their tools, will be ground to powder be- 
neath the weight of the great military empire 
they will have set up; the revolutionists in 
Russia will be cut off from all succor or co- 
operation in western Europe and a counter 
revolution fostered and supported; Germany 
herself will lose her chance of freedom ; and all 
Europe will arm for the next, the final struggle. 
The sinister intrigue is being no less actively 
conducted in this country than in Russia, and 
in every country in Europe to which the agents 
and dupes of the Imperial German Govern- 
ment can get access. That Government has 
many spokesmen here, in places high and low. 
They have learned discretion. They keep 
within the law. It is opinion they utter now, 
not sedition. They proclaim the liberal pur- 
poses of their masters; declare this a foreign 
war which can touch America with no danger 
to either her lands or her institutions ; set Eng- 
land at the center of the stage and talk of her 
ambition to assert economic dominion through- 
out the world; appeal to our ancient tradition 
of isolation in the politics of the nations; and 
seek to undermine the Government with false 
professions of loyalty to its principles. 



74 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

THIS IS A PEOPLES' WAR 

But they will make no headway. The false 
betray themselves always in every accent. It 
is only friends and partisans of the German 
Government whom we have already identified 
who utter these thinly disguised disloyalties. 
The facts are patent to all the world, and no- 
where are they more plainly seen than in the 
United States, where we are accustomed to 
deal with facts and not with sophistries; and 
the great fact that stands out above all the rest 
is that this is a Peoples' War, a war for free- 
dom and justice and self-government amongst 
all the nations of the world, a war to make the 
world safe for the peoples who live in it and 
have made it their own, the German people 
themselves included; and that with us rests 
the choice to break through all these hypocri- 
sies and patent cheats and masks of brute 
force and help set the world free, or else stand 
aside and let it be dominated a long age through 
by sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary 
choices of self -constituted masters, by the na- 
tion which can maintain the biggest armies 
and the most irresistible armaments — a power 
to which the world has afforded no parallel 
and in the face of which political freedom must 
wither and perish. 

For us there is but one choice. We have 
made it. Woe be to the man or group of men 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 75 

that seeks to stand in our way in this day of 
high resolution, when every principle we hold 
dearest is to be vindicated and made secure 
for the salvation of the nations. We are ready 
to plead at the bar of history, and our flag 
shall wear a new luster. Once more we shall 
make good with our lives and fortunes the 
great faith to which we were born, and a new 
glory shall shine in the face of our people. 



XI 



AN APPEAL TO THE BUSINESS INTERESTS 
{July ii, 1917) 

My Fellow-countrymen, — The Govern- 
ment is about to attempt to determine the 
prices at which it will ask you henceforth to 
furnish various supplies which are necessary 
for the prosecution of the war, and various 
materials which will be needed in the indus- 
tries by which the war must be sustained. 

We shall, of course, try to determine them 
justly and to the best advantage of the nation 
as a whole. But justice is easier to speak of 
than to arrive at, and there are some consid- 
erations which I hope we shall keep steadily in 
mind while this particular problem of justice 
is being worked out. 

I therefore take the liberty of stating very 
candidly my own view of the situation and 
of the principles which should guide both 
the Government and the mine -owners and 
manufacturers of the country in this difficult 
matter. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 77 

PATRIOTISM AND PROFITS APART 

A just price must, of course, be paid for 
everything the Government buys. By a just 
price I mean a price which will sustain the in- 
dustries concerned in a high state of efficiency, 
provide a living for those who conduct them, 
enable them to pay good wages, and make pos- 
sible the expansions of their enterprises, which 
will from time to time become necessary as 
the stupendous undertakings of this great war 
develop. 

We could not wisely or reasonably do less 
than pay such prices. They are necessary for 
the maintenance and development of industry ; 
and the maintenance and development of in- 
dustry are necessary for the great task we have 
in hand. 

But I trust that we shall not surround the 
matter with a mist of sentiment. Facts are 
our masters- now. We ought not to put the 
acceptance of such prices on the ground of 
patriotism. Patriotism has nothing to do 
with profits in a case like this. Patriotism 
and profits ought never in the present circum- 
stances to be mentioned together. 

It is perfectly proper to discuss profits as a 
matter of business, with a view to maintaining 
the integrity of capital and the efficiency of 
labor in these tragical months, when the lib- 
erty of free men everywhere and of industry 



78 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

itself trembles in the balance, but it would be 
absurd to discuss them as a motive for helping 
to serve and save our country. 

Patriotism leaves profits out of the question. 
In these days of our supreme trial, when we 
are sending hundreds of thousands of our young 
men across the seas to serve a great cause, no 
true man who stays behind to work for them 
and sustain them by his labor will ask himself 
what he is personally going to make out of 
that labor. 

No true patriot will permit himself to take 
toll of their heroism in money or seek to grow 
rich by the shedding of their blood. He will 
give as freely and with as unstinted self-sacri- 
fice as they. When they are giving their lives, 
will he not at least give his money? 

I hear it insisted that more than a just 
price, more than a price that will sustain 
our industries, must be paid; that it is 
necessary to pay very liberal and unusual 
profits in order to "stimulate production," 
that nothing but pecuniary rewards will do — 
rewards paid in money, not in the mere 
liberation of the world. 

IS A BRIBE NECESSARY? 

I take it for granted that those who argue 
thus do not stop to think what that means. 
Do they mean that you must be paid, must be 
bribed, to make your contribution, a contribu- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 79 

tion that costs you neither a drop of blood, 
nor a tear, when the whole world is in travail 
and men everywhere depend upon and call to 
you to bring them out of bondage and make 
the world a fit place to live in again amidst 
peace and justice? 

Do they mean that you will exact a price, 
drive a bargain, with the men who are endur- 
ing the agony of this war on the battlefield, in 
the trenches, amid the lurking dangers of the 
sea, or with the bereaved women and pitiful 
children, before you will come forward to do 
your duty and give some part of your life, in 
easy, peaceful fashion, for the things we are 
fighting for, the things we have pledged our 
fortunes, our lives, our sacred honor, to vindi- 
cate and defend — liberty and justice and fair 
dealing and the peace of nations? 

Of course you will not. It is inconceivable. 
Your patriotism is of the same self-denying 
stuff as the patriotism of the men dead or 
maimed on the fields of France, or else it is no 
patriotism at all. Let us never speak, then, of 
profits and of patriotism in the same sentence, 
but face facts and meet them. Let us do 
sound business, but not in the midst of a 
mist. 

Many a grievous burden of taxation will 
be laid on this Nation, in this generation 
and in the next, to pay for this war; let 
us see to it that for every dollar that is 



80 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

taken from the people's pockets it shall be 
possible to obtain a dollar's worth of the 
sound stuffs they need. 

HIGH FREIGHTS AID GERMANY 

Let us for a moment turn to the ship-owners 
of the United States and the other ocean car- 
riers whose example they have followed, and 
ask them if they realize what obstacles, what 
almost insuperable obstacles, they have been 
putting in the way of the successful prosecu- 
tion of this war by the ocean freight rates they 
have been exacting. 

They are doing everything that high freight 
charges can do to make the war a failure, to 
make it impossible. I do not say that they 
realize this or intend it. 

The thing has happened naturally enough, 
because the commercial processes which we are 
content to see operate in ordinary times have 
without sufficient thought been continued into 
a period where they have no proper place. I 
am not questioning motives. I am merely 
stating a fact, and stating it in order that 
attention may be fixed upon it. 

The fact is that those who have fixed war 
freight rates have taken the most effective 
means in their power to defeat the armies en- 
gaged against Germany. When they realize 
this we may, I take it for granted, count upon 
them to reconsider the whole matter. It is 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 81 

high time. Their extra hazards are covered by 
war-risk insurance. 

THE LAW TO DEAL WITH OFFENDERS 

I know, and you know, what response to 
this great challenge of duty and of opportu- 
nity the r Jation will expect of you ; and I know 
what response you will make. Those who do 
not respond, who do not respond in the spirit 
of those who have gone to give their lives for 
us on bloody fields far away, may safely be left 
to be dealt with by opinion and the law — for 
the law must, of course, command those 
things. 

I am dealing with the matter thus publicly 
and frankly, not because I have any doubt or 
fear as to the result, but only in order that, in 
all our thinking and in all our dealings with 
one another we may move in a perfectly clear 
air of mutual understanding. 

And there is something more that we must 
add to our thinking. The public is now as 
much part of the Government as are the Army 
and Navy themselves. The whole people, in 
all their activities, are now mobilized and in 
service for the accomplishment of the Nation's 
task in this war. It is in such circumstances 
impossible justly to distinguish between indus- 
trial purchases made by the Government and 
industries. And it is just as much our duty 
to sustain the industries of the country, all the 



82 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

industries that contribute to its life, as it is 
to sustain our forces in the field and on the sea. 
We must make the prices to the public the 
same as the prices to the Government. 

PRICES MEAN VICTORY OR DEFEAT 

Prices mean the same thing everywhere now. 
They mean the efficiency or the inefficiency of 
the Nation, whether it is the Government that 
pays them or not. They mean victory or de- 
feat. They mean that America will win her 
place once for all among the foremost free Na- 
tions of the world, or that she will sink to 
defeat and become a second-rate Power alike 
in thought and action. This is a day of her 
reckoning, and every man among us must per- 
sonally face that reckoning along with her. 

The case needs no arguing. I assume that 
I am only expressing your own thoughts — 
what must be in the mind of every true man 
when he faces the tragedy and the solemn 
glory of the present war, for the emancipa- 
tion of mankind. I summon you to a great 
duty, a great privilege, a shining dignity and 
distinction. 

I shall expect every man who is not a slacker 
to be at my side throughout this great enter- 
prise. In it no man can win honor who thinks 
of himself. 



XII 



REPLY OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE COM- 
MUNICATION OF THE POPE TO THE BELLIG- 
ERENT GOVERNMENTS 

(August 27, 1917) 

To His Holiness Benedictus XV., Pope. 

In acknowledgment of the communication 
of Your Holiness to the belligerent peoples, 
dated August 1, 191 7, the President of the 
United States requests me to transmit the 
following reply : 

Every heart that has not been blinded and 
hardened by this terrible war must be touched 
by this moving appeal of His Holiness, the 
Pope, must feel the dignity and force of the 
humane and generous motives which prompted 
it, and must fervently wish that we might take 
the path of peace he so persuasively points 
out. But it would be folly to take it if it does 
not, in fact, lead to the goal he proposes. Our 
response must be based upon the stern facts 
and upon nothing else. It is not a mere ces- 
sation of aims he desires; it is a stable and 
enduring peace. This agony must not be gone 



84 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

through with again, and it must be a matter 
of very sober judgment what will insure us 
against it. 

THE PROPOSAL FROM THE VATICAN 

His Holiness, in substance, proposes that we 
return to the status quo ante helium, and that 
then there be a general condonation, disarma- 
ment, and a concert of nations based upon an 
acceptance of the principle of arbitration ; that 
by a similar concert freedom of the seas be 
established; and that the territorial claims of 
France and Italy, the perplexing problems of 
the Balkan states, and the restitution of Po- 
land be left to such conciliatory adjustments as 
may be possible in the new temper of such a 
peace, due regard being paid to the aspira- 
tions of the peoples whose political fortunes 
and affiliations will be involved. 

It is manifest that no part of this program 
can be successfully carried out unless the res- 
titution of the status quo ante furnishes a firm 
and satisfactory basis for it. The object of 
this war is to deliver the free peoples of the 
world from the menace and the actual power 
of a vast military establishment controlled by 
an irresponsible Government, which, having 
secretly planned to dominate the world, pro- 
ceeded to carry the plan out without re- 
gard either to the sacred obligations of treaty 
or the long-established practices and long- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 85 

cherished principles of international action and 
honor; which chose its own time for the war; 
deliveredits blow fiercely and suddenly ; stopped 
at no barrier either of law or of mercy; swept 
a whole continent within the tide of blood — 
not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of 
innocent women and children also, and of the 
helpless poor; and now stands balked but not 
defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. 
This power is not the German people. It is 
the ruthless master of the German people. It 
is no business of ours how that great people 
came under its control or submitted with tem- 
porary zest to the domination of its purpose; 
but it is our business to see to it that the his- 
tory of the rest of the world is no longer left 
to its handling. 

To deal with such a power by way of peace 
upon the plan proposed by His Holiness the 
Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a 
recuperation of its strength and a renewal of 
its policy ; would make it necessary to create 
a permanent hostile combination of nations 
against the German people who are its instru- 
ments; and would result in abandoning the 
new-born Russia to the intrigue, the manifold 
subtle interference, and the certain counter- 
revolution which would be attempted by all 
the malign influences to which the German 
Government has of late accustomed the world. 
Can peace be based upon a restitution of its 



86 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

power or upon any word of honor it could 
pledge in a treaty of settlement and accom- 
modation ? 

Responsible statesmen must now everywhere 
see, if they never saw before, that no peace can 
rest securely upon political or economic restric- 
tions meant to benefit some nations and cripple 
or embarrass others, upon vindictive action of 
any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate 
injury. The American people have suffered 
intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial 
German Government, but they desire no re- 
prisal upon the German people, who have 
themselves suffered all things in this war which 
they did not choose. They believe that peace 
should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the 
rights of governments — the rights of peoples 
great or small, weak or powerful — their equal 
right to freedom and security and self-govern- 
ment and to a participation upon fair terms in 
the economic opportunities of the world, the 
German people, of course, included, if they will 
accept equality and not seek domination. 

The test, therefore, of every plan of peace 
is this: Is it based upon the faith of all the 
peoples involved or merely upon the word of 
an ambitious and intriguing Government on 
the one hand, and of a group of free peoples 
on the other ? This is a test which goes to the 
root of the matter; and it is the test which 
must be applied. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 87 

THE TEST THAT MUST BE APPLIED 

The purposes of the United States in this 
war are known to the whole world, to every 
people to whom the truth has been permitted 
to come. They do not need to be stated again. 
We seek no material advantage of any kind. 
We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in 
this war by the furious and brutal power of the 
Imperial German Government ought to be re- 
paired, but not at the expense of the sover- 
eignty of any people — rather a vindication of 
the sovereignty both of those that are weak 
and of those that are strong. Punitive dam- 
ages, the dismemberment of empires, the es- 
tablishment of selfish and exclusive economic 
leagues, we deem inexpedient and in the end 
worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace 
of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace. 
That must be based upon justice and fairness 
and the common rights of mankind. 

THE GERMAN RULERS CANNOT BE TRUSTED 

We cannot take the word of the present rul- 
ers of Germany as a guaranty of anything that 
is to endure, unless explicitly supported by 
such conclusive evidence of the will and pur- 
pose of the German people themselves as the 
other peoples of the world would be justified 
in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties 

of settlement, agreements for disarmament, 

7 



88 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

covenants to set up arbitration in the place of 
force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions 
of small nations, if made with the German 
Government, no man, no nation could now 
depend on. We must await some new evi- 
dence of the purposes of the great peoples of 
the Central Powers. God grant it may be 
given soon, and in a way to restore the confi- 
dence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of 
nations and the possibility of a covenanted 
peace. 

Robert Lansing, 

Secretary of State of the United States of 
America. 



XIII 

A MESSAGE TO TEACHERS AND SCHOOL 

OFFICERS 

(September 30, 191 7) 

The war is bringing to the minds of our 
people a new appreciation of the problems of 
national life and a deeper understanding of the 
meaning and aims of democracy. Matters 
which heretofore have seemed commonplace 
and trivial are seen in a truer light. The ur- 
gent demand for the production and proper 
distribution of food and other national re- 
sources has made us aware of the close de- 
pendence of individual on individual and na- 
tion on nation. The effort to keep up social 
and industrial organizations, in spite of the 
withdrawal of men for the army, has revealed 
the extent to which modern life has become 
complex and specialized. 

These and other lessons of the war must be 
learned quickly if we are intelligently and suc- 
cessfully to defend our institutions. When the 
war is over we must apply the wisdom which 



90 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

we have acquired in purging and ennobling the 
life of the world. 



THE COMMON SCHOOL HAS A PART TO PLAY 

In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader 
view of human possibilities the common school 
must have large part. I urge that teachers 
and other school officers increase materially the 
time and attention devoted to instruction bear- 
ing directly on the problems of community and 
national life. 

Such a plea is in no way foreign to the spirit 
of American public education or of existing 
practices. Nor is it a plea for a temporary 
enlargement of the school program appropri- 
ate merely to the period of the war. It is a 
plea for a realization in public education of the 
new emphasis which the war has given to the 
ideals of democracy and to the broader con- 
ceptions of national life. 

In order that there may be definite material 
at hand with which the schools may at once 
expand their teachings, I have asked Mr. 
Hoover and Commissioner Claxton to organ- 
ize the proper agencies for the preparation and 
distribution of suitable lessons for the element- 
ary grades and for the high-school classes. 
Lessons thus suggested will serve the double 
purpose of illustrating in a concrete way what 
can be undertaken in the schools and of stimu- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 91 

lating teachers in all parts of the country to 
formulate newand appropriate materials drawn 
directly from the communities in which they 
live. 

Woodrow Wilson. 



XIV 

WOMAN SUFFRAGE MUST COME NOW 
{October 25, 191 7) 

The President received at the White House 
a delegation from the New York State Woman 
Suffrage Party. Answering the address made 
by the chairman, Mrs. Norman de R. White- 
house, the President spoke as follows: 

Mrs. Whitehouse and Ladies, — It is with 
great pleasure that I receive you. I esteem it 
a privilege to do so. I know the difficulties 
which you have been laboring under in New 
York State, so clearly set forth by Mrs. White- 
house, but in my judgment those difficulties 
cannot be used as an excuse by the leaders of 
any party or by the voters of any party for 
neglecting the question which you are pressing 
upon them. Because, after all, the whole 
world now is witnessing a struggle between two 
ideals of government. It is a struggle which 
goes deeper and touches more of the founda- 
tions of the organized life of men than any 
struggle that has ever taken place before, and 
no settlement of the questions that lie on the 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 93 

surface can satisfy a situation which requires 
that the questions which lie underneath and at 
the foundation should also be settled and 
settled right. I am free to say that I think 
the question of woman suffrage is one of those 
questions which He at the foundation. 

The world has witnessed a slow political 
reconstruction, and men have generally been 
obliged to be satisfied with the slowness of the 
process. In a sense it is wholesome that it 
should be slow, because then it is solid and 
sure. But I believe that this war is going so 
to quicken the convictions and the conscious- 
ness of mankind with regard to political ques- 
tions that the speed of reconstruction will be 
greatly increased. And I believe that just be- 
cause we are quickened by the questions of 
this war, we ought to be quickened to give 
this question of woman suffrage our immediate 
consideration. 

NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT 

As one of the spokesmen of a great party, 
I would be doing nothing less than obeying the 
mandates of that party if I gave my hearty 
support to the question of woman suffrage 
which you represent, but I do not want to 
speak merely as one of the spokesmen of a 
party. I want to speak for myself, and say 
that it seems to me that this is the time for the 
States of this Union to take this action. I 



94 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

perhaps may be touched a little too much by 
the traditions of our politics, traditions which 
lay such questions almost entirely upon the 
States, but I want to see communities declare 
themselves quickened at this time and show 
the consequence of the quickening. 

I think the whole country has appreciated 
the way in which the women have risen to this 
great occasion. They not only have done what 
they have been asked to do, and done it with 
ardor and efficiency, but they have shown a 
power to organize for doing things of their own 
initiative, which is quite a different thing, and 
a very much more difficult thing, and I think 
the whole country has admired the spirit and 
the capacity and the vision of the women of 
the United States. 

It is almost absurd to say that the country 
depends upon the women for a large part of 
the inspiration of its life. That is too obvious 
to say; but it is now depending upon the 
women also for suggestions of service, which 
have been rendered in abundance and with the 
distinction of originality. I, therefore, am very 
glad to add my voice to those which are urging 
the people of the great State of New York to 
set a great example by voting for woman suf- 
frage. It would be a pleasure if I might utter 
that advice in their presence. Inasmuch as 
I am bound too close to my duties here to 
make that possible, I am glad to have th§ 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 95 

privilege to ask you to convey that message 
to them. 

It seems to me that this is a time of privi- 
lege. All our principles, all our hearts, all our 
purposes, are being searched ; searched not only 
by our own consciences, but searched by the 
world ; and it is time for the people of the States 
of this country to show the world in what prac- 
tical sense they have learned the lessons of 
democracy — that they are righting for democ- 
racy because they believe it, and that there is 
no application of democracy which they do not 
believe in. 

I feel, therefore, that I am standing upon 
the firmest foundations of the age in bidding 
godspeed to the cause which you represent and 
in expressing the ardent hope that the people 
of New York may realize the great occasion 
which faces them on Election Day and may 
respond to it in noble fashion. 



XV 

THE THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION 

(November 7, 1917) 

It has long been the honored custom of our 
people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the 
year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty 
God for His many blessings and mercies to us 
as a Nation. That custom we can follow now, 
even in the midst of the tragedy of a world 
shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in 
the midst of sorrow and great peril, because 
even amidst the darkness that has gathered 
about us we can see the great blessings God 
has bestowed upon us; blessings that are bet- 
ter than mere peace of mind and prosperity of 
enterprise. 

We have been given the opportunity to serve 
mankind as we once served ourselves in the 
great day of our declaration of independence, 
by taking up arms against a tyranny that 
threatened to master and debase men every- 
where and joining with other free peoples in 
demanding for all the nations of the world 
what we then demanded and obtained for our- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 97 

selves. In this day of the revelation of our 
duty not only to defend our rights as a Nation, 
but to defend also the rights of free men 
throughout the world, there has been vouch- 
safed us in full and inspiring measure the reso- 
lution and spirit of united action. We have 
been brought to one mind and purpose. A 
new vigor of common counsel and common 
action has been revealed in us. 

We should especially thank God that, in 
such circumstances, in the midst of the great- 
est enterprise the spirits of men have ever 
entered upon, we have, if we but observe a 
reasonable and practicable economy, abun- 
dance with which to supply the needs of those 
associated with us as well as our own. 

A new light shines about us. The great 
duties of a new day awaken a new and greater 
national spirit in us. We shall never again be 
divided or wonder what stuff we are made of. 

And while we render thanks for these things, 
let us pray Almighty God that in all humble- 
ness of spirit we may look always to Him for 
guidance; that we may be kept constant in the 
spirit and purpose of service ; that by His grace 
our minds may be directed and our hands 
strengthened, and that in His good time lib- 
erty and security and peace and the comrade- 
ship of a common justice may be vouchsafed 
all the nations of the earth. 

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of 



98 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

the United States of America, do hereby desig- 
nate Thursday, the 29th day of November 
next, as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and 
invite the people throughout the land to cease 
upon that day from their ordinary occupations 
and in their several homes and places of wor- 
ship to render thanks to God, the Great Ruler 
of nations. 



XVI 

LABOR MUST BEAR ITS PART 
{November 12, 1917) 

In his address before the American Federa- 
tion of Labor, assembled in convention at 
Buffalo, New York, the President spoke as 
follows : 

Mr. President, Delegates of the Amer- 
ican Federation op Labor, Ladies and 
Gentlemen, — I esteem it a great privilege 
and a real honor to be thus admitted to your 
public councils. When your executive com- 
mittee paid me the compliment of inviting me 
here I gladly accepted the invitation, because 
it seems to me that this, above all other times 
in your history, is the time for common coun- 
sel, for the drawing not only of the energies, 
but of the minds of the nation together. I 
thought that it was a welcome opportunity for 
disclosing to you some of the thoughts that 
have been gathering in my mind during the 
last momentous months. 

I am introduced to you as the President of 
the United States, and yet I would be pleased 
if you would put the thought of the office into 



ioo IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

the background and regard me as one of your 
fellow-citizens who has come here to speak, 
not the words of authority, but the words of 
counsel, the words which men should speak to 
one another who wish to be frank in a moment 
more critical, perhaps, than the history of the 
world has ever yet known, a moment when it 
is every man's duty to forget himself, to forget 
his own interests, to fill himself with the nobil- 
ity of a great national and world conception 
and act upon a new platform elevated above 
the ordinary affairs of life, elevated to where 
men have views of the long destiny of mankind. 
I think that in order to realize just what 
this moment of counsel is, it is very desirable 
that we should remind ourselves just how this 
war came about and just what it is for. You 
can explain most wars very simply, but the 
explanation of this is not so simple. Its roots 
run deep into all the obscure soils of history, 
and, in my view, this is the last decisive issue 
between the old principles of power and the 
new principles of freedom. 

GERMANY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR 

The war was started by Germany. Her 
authorities deny that they started it, but I am 
willing to let the statement I have just made 
await the verdict of history. The thing that 
needs to be explained is why Germany started 
the war. Remember what the position of Ger- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 101 

many in the world was — as enviable a position 
as any nation has ever occupied. The whole 
world stood at admiration of her wonderful 
intellectual and material achievements, and all 
the intellectual men of the world went to school 
to her. As a university man I have been sur- 
rounded by men trained in Germany, men 
who had resorted to Germany because nowhere 
else could they get such thorough and search- 
ing training, particularly in the principles of 
science and the principles that underlie modern 
material achievements. 

Her men of science had made her indus- 
tries perhaps the most competent industries in 
the world, and the label, "Made in Germany," 
was a guarantee of good workmanship and 
of sound material. She had access to all the 
markets of the world, and every other man 
who traded in those markets feared Germany 
because of her effective and almost irresistible 
competition. She had a place in the sun. Why 
was she not satisfied? What more did she 
want? There was nothing in the world of 
peace that she did not already have, and have 
in abundance. 

We boast of the extraordinary pace of 
American advancement. We show with pride 
the statistics of the increase of our industries 
and of the population of our cities. Well, 
those statistics did not match the recent sta- 
tistics of Germany. Her old cities took on 



102 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

youth, grew faster than any American cities 
ever grew ; her old industries opened their eyes 
and saw a new world and went out for its con- 
quest, and yet the authorities of Germany were 
not satisfied. 

You have one part of the answer to the 
question why she was not satisfied in her meth- 
ods of competition. There is no important in- 
dustry in Germany upon which the Govern- 
ment had not laid its hands to direct it and, 
when necessity arose, control it. 

You have only to ask any man whom you 
meet who is familiar with the conditions that 
prevailed before the war in the matter of inter- 
national competition to find out the methods 
of competition which the German manufactur- 
ers and exporters used under the patronage 
and support of the Government of Germany. 
You will find that they were the same sorts of 
competition that we have decided to prevent 
by law within our own borders. If they could 
not sell their goods cheaper than we could 
sell ours, at a profit to themselves, they could 
get a subsidy from the Government which 
made it possible to sell them cheaper any- 
how; and the conditions of competition were 
thus controlled in large measure by the German 
Government itself. 

But that did not satisfy the German Gov- 
ernment. All the while there was lying be- 
hind its thought, in its dreams of the future, a 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 103 

political control which would enable it, in the 
long run, to dominate the labor and the in- 
dustry of the world. 

SUCCESS BY AUTHORITY 

They were not content with success by su- 
perior achievement; they wanted success by 
authority. I suppose very few of you have 
thought much about the Berlin to Bagdad rail- 
way. The Berlin to Bagdad railway was con- 
structed in order to run the threat of force 
down the flank of the industrial undertakings 
of half a dozen other countries, so that when 
German competition came in it would not be 
resisted too far — because there was always the 
possibility of getting German armies into the 
heart of that country quicker than any other 
armies could be got there. 

Look at the map of Europe now. Ger- 
many, in thrusting upon us again and again 
the discussion of peace, talks about what? 
Talks about Belgium, talks about northern 
France, talks about Alsace-Lorraine. She has 
kept all that her dreams contemplated when 
the war began. If she can keep that, her 
power can disturb the world as long as she 
keeps it ; always provided — for I feel bound to 
put this provision in — always provided the 
present influences that control the German 
Government continue to control it. 

I believe that the spirit of freedom can get 



io 4 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

into the hearts of Germans and find as fine a 
welcome there as it can find in any other 
hearts. But the spirit of freedom does not 
suit the plans of the Pan-Germans. Power 
cannot be used with concentrated force against 
free peoples if it is used by free people. You 
know how many intimations come to us from 
one of the Central Powers that it is more 
anxious for peace than the chief Central Power, 
and you know that it means that the people in 
that Central Power know that if the war ends 
as it stands, they will in effect themselves be 
vassals of Germany, notwithstanding that their 
populations are compounded with all the people 
of that part of the world, and notwithstanding 
the fact that they do not wish, in their pride 
and proper spirit of nationality, to be so 
absorbed and dominated. 

THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE WORLD 

Germany is determined that the political 
power of the world shall belong to her. There 
have been such ambitions before. They have 
been in part realized. But never before have 
those ambitions been based upon so exact and 
precise and scientific a plan of domination. 

May I not say it is amazing to me that any 
group of people should be so ill informed as to 
suppose, as some groups in Russia apparently 
suppose, that any reforms planned in the in- 
terest of the people can live in the presence of 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 105 

a Germany powerful enough to undermine or 
overthrow them by intrigue or force? 

Any body of free men that compounds 
with the present German Government is com- 
pounding for its own destruction. But that 
is not the whole of the story. Any man in 
America or anywhere else who supposes that 
the free industry and enterprise of the world 
can continue if the Pan-German plan is achieved 
and German power fastened upon the world is 
as fatuous as the dreamers of Russia. 

What I am opposed to is not the feeling of 
the pacifists, but their stupidity. My heart 
is with them, but my mind has a contempt for 
them. I want peace, but I know how to get 
it, and they do not. 

You will notice that I sent a friend of 
mine, Colonel House, to Europe, who is as 
great a lover of peace as any man in the world ; 
but I did not send him on a peace mission. I 
sent him to take part in a conference as to how 
the war was to be won. And he knows, as I 
know, that that is the way to get peace if you 
want it for more than a few minutes. 

If we are true friends of freedom — our own 
or anybody else's — we will see that the power 
of this country and the productivity of this 
country is raised to its absolute maximum and 
that absolutely nobody is allowed to stand in 
the way of it. 

When I say that nobody ought to be al- 



io6 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

lowed to stand in the way, I don't mean that 
they shall be prevented by the power of 
Government, but by the power of the Ameri- 
can spirit. Our duty, if we are to do this great 
thing and show America to be what we believe 
her to be, the greatest hope and energy in the 
world, then we must stand together night and 
day until the job is finished. 

LABOR MUST BE FREE 

While we are fighting for freedom we must 
see, among other things, that labor is free, and 
that means a number of interesting things. It 
means not only that we must do what we have 
declared our purpose to do — see that the con- 
ditions of labor are not rendered more oner- 
ous by the war — but also that we shall see to 
it that the instrumentalities by which the con- 
ditions of labor are improved are not blocked 
or checked. That we must do. That has 
been the matter about which I have taken 
pleasure in conferring, from time to time, with 
your president, Mr. Gompers; and if I may be 
permitted to do so, I want to express my ad- 
miration of his patriotic courage, his large 
vision, his statesman-like sense and a mind that 
knows how to pull in harness. The horses 
that kick over the traces will have to be put 
in a corral. 

Now, to "stand together" means that no- 
body must interrupt the processes of our en- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 107 

ergy if the interruption can possibly be avoided 
without the absolute invasion of freedom. To 
put it concretely, that means this : Nobody has 
a right to stop the processes of labor until all 
the methods of conciliation and settlement 
have been exhausted, and I might as well say 
right here that I am not talking to you alone. 
You sometimes stop the courses of labor, but 
there are others who do the same. I am speak- 
ing of my own experience when I say that you 
are reasonable in a larger number of cases than 
the capitalists. 

I am not saying these things to them per- 
sonally yet, because I haven't had a chance. 
But they have to be said, not in any spirit of 
criticism. 

But, in order to clear the atmosphere and 
come down to business, everybody on both 
sides has got to transact business, and the 
settlement is never impossible when both sides 
want to do the square and right thing. More- 
over, a settlement is always hard to avoid 
when the parties can be brought face to face. 
I can differ with a man much more radically 
when he isn't in the room than I can when he 
is in the room, because then the awkward thing 
is that he can come back at me and answer 
what I say. It is always dangerous for a man 
to have the floor entirely to himself. And, 
therefore, we must insist in every instance that 
the parties come into each other's presence and 



108 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

there discuss the issues between them, and not 
separately in places which have no communi- 
cation with each other. 

I like to remind myself of a delightful say- 
ing of an Englishman of a past generation, 
Charles Lamb. He was with a group of friends 
and he spoke harshly of some man who was 
not present. I ought to say that Lamb stut- 
tered a little bit. And one of his friends said, 
4 'Why, Charles, I didn't know that you knew 
So-and-so?" "Oh," hesaid, "I don't. I can't 
hate a man I know." 

There is a great deal of human nature, of 
very pleasant human nature, in that saying. 
It is hard to hate a man you know. I may 
admit, parenthetically, that there are some 
politicians whose methods I do not at all be- 
lieve in, but they are jolly good fellows, and if 
they would not talk the wrong kind of politics 
with me I would love to be with them. And 
so it is all along the line, in serious matters and 
things less serious. We are all of the same 
clay and spirit, and we can get together if we 
desire to get together. 

AMERICANS MUST CO-OPERATE 

Therefore my counsel to you is this : Let us 
show ourselves Americans by showing that we 
do not want to go off in separate camps or 
groups by ourselves, but that we want to co- 
operate with all other classes and all other 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 109 

groups in a common enterprise, which is to 
release the spirits of the world from bondage. 
I would be willing to set that up as the final 
test of an American. That is the meaning of 
democracy. 

I have been very much distressed, my fel- 
low-citizens, by some of the things that have 
happened recently. The mob spirit is display- 
ing itself here and there in this country. I 
have no sympathy with what some men are 
saying, but I have no sympathy with the men 
that take their punishment into their own 
hands; and I want to say to every man who 
does join such a mob that I recognize him as 
unworthy of the free institutions of the United 
States. 

There are some organizations in this coun- 
try whose object is anarchy and the destruc- 
tion of the law. I despise and hate their pur- 
pose as much as any man, but I respect the 
ancient processes of justice, and I would be too 
proud not to see them done justice, however 
wrong they are. And so I want to utter my 
earnest protest against any manifestation of 
the spirit of lawlessness anywhere or in any 
cause. Why, gentlemen, look what it means. 

We claim to be the greatest democratic 
people in the world, and democracy means, 
first of all, that we can govern ourselves. If 
our men have not self-control, then they are 
not capable of that great thing which we call 



no IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

democratic government. A man who takes the 
law into his own hands is not the right man to 
co-operate in any form of orderly development 
of law and institutions. 

And some of the processes by which the 
struggle between capital and labor is carried 
on are processes that come very near to taking 
the law into your own hands. I do not mean 
for a moment to compare them with what I 
have just been speaking of, but I want you to 
see that they are mere gradations of the mani- 
festations of the unwillingness to co-operate. 
The fundamental lesson of the whole situation 
is that we must not only take common counsel, 
but that we must yield to and obey common 
counsel. Not all of the instrumentalities for 
this are at hand. 

BETTER CONDITIONS MAY BE AT HAND 

I am hopeful that in the very near future 
new instrumentalities may be organized by 
which we can see to it that various things that 
are now going on shall not go on. There are 
various processes of the dilution of labor and 
the unnecessary substitution of labor and bid- 
ding in different markets and unfairly upset- 
ting the whole competition of labor which 
ought not to go on — I mean now, on the part 
of employers — and we must interject into this 
some instrumentality of co-operation by which 
the fair thing will be done all around. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR in 

I am hopeful that some such instrumen- 
talities may be devised, but whether they are 
or not we must use those that we have, and 
upon every occasion where it is necessary to 
have such an instrumentality, originated upon 
that occasion, if necessary. 

And so, my fellow-citizens, the reason that 
I came away from Washington is that I some- 
times get lonely down there — there are so many 
people in Washington who know things that 
are not so, and there are so few people in Wash- 
ington who know anything about what the 
people of the United States are thinking about. 
I have to come away to get reminded of the 
rest of the country. I have come away and 
talk to men who are up against the real thing 
and say to them, I am with you if you are 
with me. The only test of being with me is 
not to think about me personally at all, but 
merely to think of me as the expression for the 
time being of the power and dignity and hope 
of the American people. 



XVII 

ADDRESS TO CONGRESS 
{December 4, 1917) 

Gentlemen of the Congress, — Eight 
months have elapsed since I last had the honor 
of addressing you. They have been months 
crowded with events of immense and grave sig- 
nificance for us. I shall not undertake to detail 
or even to summarize these events. The prac- 
tical particulars of the part we have played in 
them will be laid before you in the reports of 
the executive departments. I shall discuss only 
our present outlook upon these vast affairs, 
our present duties and the immediate means of 
accomplishing the objects we shall hold always 
in view. 

I shall not go back to debate the causes of 
the war. The intolerable wrongs done and 
planned against us by the sinister masters of 
Germany have long since become too grossly 
obvious and odious to every true American to 
need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to 
consider again, and with very grave scrutiny, 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 113 

our objectives and the measures by which we 
mean to attain them; for the purpose of discus- 
sion here in this place is action, and our action 
must move straight toward definite ends. Our 
object is, of course, to win the war, and we 
shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be di- 
verted until it is won. But it is worth while 
asking and answering the question, When shall 
we consider the war won? 

From one point of view it is not necessary to 
broach this fundamental matter. I do not 
doubt that the American people know what 
the war is about, and what sort of an outcome 
they will regard as a realization of their pur- 
pose in it. As a nation we are united in spirit 
and intention. 

I pay little heed to those who tell me 
otherwise. I hear the voices of dissent — ■ 
who does not? I hear the criticism and 
the clamor of the noisily thoughtless and 
troublesome. I also see men here and there 
fling themselves in impotent disloyalty against 
the calm, indomitable power of the Nation. 
I hear men debate peace who understand 
neither its nature nor the way in which we 
may attain it, with uplifted eyes and un- 
broken spirits. But I know that none of 
these speaks for the Nation. They do not 
touch the heart of anything. They may 
safely be left to strut about their uneasy 
hour and be forgotten, 



ii 4 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR 

But from another point of view I believe 
that it is necessary to say plainly what we here 
at the seat of action consider the war to be for, 
and what part we mean to play in the settle- 
ment of its searching issues. We are the spokes- 
men of the American people, and they have a 
right to know whether their purpose is ours. 
They desire peace by the overcoming of evil, 
but the defeat once and for all of the sinister 
forces that interrupt peace and render it im- 
possible, and they wish to know how closely 
our thought runs with theirs and what action 
we propose. They are impatient with those 
who desire peace by any sort of compromise — 
deeply and indignantly impatient — but they 
will be equally impatient with us if we do not 
make it plain to them what our objectives are 
and what we are planning for in seeking to 
make conquest of peace by arms. 

I believe that I speak for them when I say 
two things : First, that this intolerable Thing of 
which the masters of Germany have shown us 
the ugly face, this menace of combined intrigue 
and force, which we now see so clearly as the 
German power, a Thing without conscience or 
honor or capacity for covenanted peace, must 
be crushed, and, if it be not utterly brought 
to an end, at least shut out from the friendly 
intercourse of the nations; and, second, that 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 115 

when this Thing and its power are indeed de- 
feated and the time comes that we can discuss 
peace — when the German people have spokes- 
men whose word we can believe, and when 
those spokesmen are ready, in the name of their 
people, to accept the common judgment of the 
nations as to what shall henceforth be the 
bases of law and of covenant for the life of 
the world — we shall be willing and glad to pay 
the full price for peace and pay it ungrudgingly. 
We know what that price will be. It will be 
full, impartial justice — justice done at every 
point and to every nation that the final settle- 
ment must affect, our enemies as well as our 
friends. 

You catch with me the voices of humanity 
that are in the air. They grow daily more 
audible, more articulate, more persuasive, and 
they come from the hearts of men everywhere. 
They insist that the war shall not end in vin- 
dictive action of any kind; that no nation or 
people shall be robbed or punished because the 
irresponsible rulers of a single country have 
themselves done deep and abominable wrong. 
It is this thought that has been expressed in 
the formula, "No annexations, no contribu- 
tions, no punitive indemnities.' ' 

THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA LED ASTRAY 

Just because this crude formula expresses the 
instinctive judgment as to the right of plain 



n6 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

men everywhere, it has been made diligent use 
of by the masters of German intrigue to lead 
the people of Russia astray, and the people of 
every other country their agents could reach, 
in order that a premature peace might be 
brought about before autocracy has been taught 
its final and convincing lesson and the people 
of the world put in control of their own 
destinies. 

But the fact that a wrong use has been made 
of a just idea is no reason why a right use 
should not be made of it. It ought to be 
brought under the patronage of its real friends. 
Let it be said again that autocracy must first 
be shown the utter futility of its claims to 
power or leadership in the modern world. It 
is impossible to apply any standard of justice 
so long as such forces are unchecked and un- 
defeated as the present masters of Germany 
command. Not until that has been done can 
right be set up as arbiter and peacemaker 
among the nations. But when that has been 
done — as, God willing, it assuredly will be — 
we shall at last be free to do an unprecedented 
thing, and this is the time to avow our purpose 
to do it. We shall be free to base peace on 
generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all 
selfish claims to advantage, even on the part 
of the victors. 

Let there be no misunderstanding. Our 
present and immediate task is to win the war, 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 117 

and nothing shall turn us aside from it until 
it is accomplished. Every power and resource 
we possess, whether of men, of money, or of 
materials, is being devoted, and will continue 
to be devoted, to that purpose until it is 
achieved. Those who desire to bring peace 
about before that purpose is achieved I coun- 
sel to carry their advice elsewhere. We will 
not entertain it. 

JUSTICE AND REPARATION 

We shall regard the war only as won when 
the German people say to us, through properly 
accredited representatives, that they are ready 
to agree to a settlement based upon justice and 
the reparation of the wrongs their rulers have 
done. They have done a wrong to Belgium 
which must be repaired. They have estab- 
lished a power over other lands and peoples 
than their own — over the great empire of Aus- 
tria-Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan states, 
over Turkey, and within Asia — which must be 
relinquished. 

Germany's success by skill, by industry, by 
knowledge, by enterprise, we did not grudge 
or oppose, but admired rather. She had built 
up for herself a real empire of trade and influ- 
ence, secured by the peace of the world. We 
were content to abide the rivalries of manufact- 
ure, science and commerce that were involved 
for us in her success, and stand or fall as we had 



ii8 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

or did not have the brains and the initiative 
to surpass her. But at the moment when she 
had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace 
she threw them away to establish in their 
stead what the world will no longer permit to 
be established — military and political domi- 
nation by arms, by which to oust where she 
could not excel the rivals she most feared and 
hated. 

The peace we make must remedy that wrong. 
It must deliver the once fair lands and happy 
peoples of Belgium and northern France from 
the Prussian conquest and the Prussian men- 
ace, but it must also deliver the peoples of 
Austria-Hungary, the peoples of the Balkans, 
and the peoples of Turkey, alike in Europe and 
in Asia, from the impudent and alien domi- 
nation of the Prussian military and commercial 
autocracy. 

We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that 
we do not wish in any way to impair or to re- 
arrange the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is 
no affair of ours what they do with their own 
life, either industrially or politically. We do 
not purpose nor desire to dictate to them in 
any way. We only desire to see that their af- 
fairs are left in their own hands, in all matters, 
great or small. We shall hope to secure for 
the peoples of the Balkan peninsula and for the 
people of the Turkish Empire the right and op- 
portunity to make their own lives safe, their 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 119 

own fortunes secure against oppression or injus- 
tice and from the dictation of foreign courts or 
parties, and our attitude and purpose with 
regard to Germany herself are of a like kind. 

OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD GERMANY 

We intend no wrong against the German Em- 
pire, no interference with her internal affairs. 
We should deem either the one or the other 
absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to 
the principles we have professed to live by and 
to hold most sacred throughout our life as a 
nation. 

The people of Germany are being told by 
the men whom* they now permit to deceive 
them and to act as their masters that they 
are fighting for very life and existence of 
their empire, a war of desperate self-defense 
against deliberate aggression. Nothing could 
be more grossly or wantonly false, and we must 
seek, by the utmost openness and candor as 
to our real aims, to convince them of its false- 
ness. We are, in fact, fighting for their eman- 
cipation from fear, along with our own, from 
the fear as well as from the fact of unjust 
attack by neighbors or rivals or schemers after 
world empire. No one is threatening the exist- 
ence or the independence or the peaceful en- 
terprise of the German Empire. 

The worst that can happen to the detriment 
of the German people is this, that if they should 



120 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

still, after the war is over, continue to be 
obliged to live under ambitious and intriguing 
masters interested to disturb the peace of the 
world, men or classes of men whom the other 
peoples of the world could not trust, it might 
be impossible to admit them to the partner- 
ship of nations which must henceforth guar- 
antee the world's peace. That partnership 
must be a partnership of peoples, not a mere 
partnership of governments. 

It might be impossible, also, in such untow- 
ard circumstances, to admit Germany to the 
free economic intercourse which must inevi- 
tably spring out of the other partnerships of a 
real peace. But there would be no aggression 
in that; and such a situation, inevitable be- 
cause of distrust, would in the very nature of 
things sooner or later cure itself, by processes 
which would assuredly set in. 

THE RIGHTS OF THE CENTRAL POWERS 

The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, com- 
mitted in this war will have to be righted. 
That of course. But they cannot and must 
not be righted by the commission of similar 
wrongs against Germany and her allies. The 
world will not permit the commission of simi- 
lar wrongs as a means of reparation and settle- 
ment. Statesmen must by this time have 
learned that the opinion of the world is every- 
where wide awake and fully comprehends the 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 121 

issues involved. No representative of any self- 
governed nation will dare disregard it by at- 
tempting any such covenants of selfishness and 
compromise as were entered into at the congress 
of Vienna. 

The thought of the plain people here and 
everywhere throughout the world, the people 
who enjoy no privilege and have very simple 
and unsophisticated standards of right and 
wrong, is the air all governments must hence- 
forth breathe if they would live. It is in the 
full disclosing light of that thought that all 
policies must be conceived and executed in this 
midday hour of the world's life. 

German rulers have been able to upset the 
peace of the world only because the German 
people were not suffered, under their tutelage, 
to share the comradeship of the other peoples 
of the world either in thought or in purpose. 
They were allowed to have no opinion of their 
own which might be set up as a rule of conduct 
for those who exercised authority over them. 
But the congress that concludes this war will 
feel the full strength of the tides that run now 
in the hearts and consciences of free men every- 
where. Its conclusions will run with those 
tides. 

All these things have been true from the very 
beginning of this stupendous war; and I can- 
not help thinking that if they had been made 
plain at the very outset the sympathy and en- 



122 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

thusiasm of the Russian people might have 
been once for all enlisted on the side of the 
Allies, suspicion and distrust swept away, and 
a real and lasting union of purpose effected. 
Had they believed these things at the very mo- 
ment of their revolution, and had they been 
confirmed in that belief since, the sad reverses 
which have recently marked the progress of 
their affairs toward an ordered and stable gov- 
ernment of free men might have been avoided. 

TRUTH AS THE ANTIDOTE 

The Russian people have been poisoned by 
the very same falsehoods that have kept the 
German people in the dark, and the poison has 
been administered by the very same hands. 
The only possible antidote is the truth. It 
cannot be uttered too plainly or too often. 

From every point of view, therefore, it has 
seemed to be my duty to speak these declara- 
tions of purpose, to add these specific interpre- 
tations to what I took the liberty of saying to 
the Senate in January. Our entrance into the 
war has not altered our attitude toward the 
settlement that must come when it is over. 
When I said in January that the nations of 
the world were entitled not only to free path- 
ways upon the sea, but also to assured and un- 
molested access to those pathways, I was 
thinking, and I am thinking now, not of the 
smaller and weaker nations alone, which need 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 123 

our countenance and support, but also of the 
great and powerful nations, and of our present 
enemies as well as our present associates in the 
war. I was thinking, and am thinking now, 
of Austria herself, among the rest, as well as 
of Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equal- 
ity of rights can be had only at a great price. 
We are seeking permanent, not temporary, 
foundations for the peace of the world, and 
must seek them candidly and fearlessly. As 
always, the right will prove to be the expedient. 
What shall we do, then, to push this great 
war of freedom and justice to its righteous con- 
clusion ? We must clear away with a thorough 
hand all impediments to success, and we must 
make every adjustment of law that will facili- 
tate the full and free use of our whole capacity 
and force as a fighting unit. 

THE WAR AGAINST AUSTRIA 

One very embarrassing obstacle that stands 
in our way is that we are at war with Germany, 
but not with her allies. I therefore very ear- 
nestly recommend that the Congress immedi- 
ately declare the United States in a state of 
war with Austria-Hungary. Does it seem 
strange to you that this should be the conclu- 
sion of the argument I have just addressed to 
you? It is not. It is, in fact, the inevitable 
logic of what I have said. Austria-Hungary is 
for the time being not her own mistress, but 



i2 4 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

simply the vassal of the German Government. 
We must face the facts as they are and act 
upon them without sentiment in this stern 
business. 

The Government of Austria-Hungary is not 
acting upon its own initiative or in response to 
the wishes and feelings of its own peoples, but 
as the instrument of another nation. We must 
meet its force with our own and regard the 
Central Powers as but one. The war can be 
successfully conducted in no other way. The 
same logic would lead also to a declaration of 
war against Turkey and Bulgaria. They also 
are the tools of Germany. But they are mere 
tools, and do not yet stand in the direct path 
of our necessary action. We shall go wherever 
the necessities of this war carry us, but it seems 
to me that we should go only where immediate 
and practical considerations lead us, and not 
heed any others. 

A STRICTER GRIP ON ENEMY ALIENS 

The financial and military measures which 
must be adopted will suggest themselves as the 
war and its undertakings develop, but I will 
take the liberty of proposing to you certain 
other acts of legislation which seem to me to 
be needed for the support of the war and for 
the release of our whole force and energy. 

It will be necessary to extend in certain par- 
ticulars the legislation of the last session with 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 125 

regard to alien enemies; and also necessary, I 
believe, to create a very definite and particular 
control over the entrance and departure of all 
persons into and from the United States. 

Legislation should be enacted defining as a 
criminal offense every wilful violation of the 
Presidential proclamations relating to enemy 
aliens promulgated under Section 4067 of the 
Revised Statutes and providing appropriate 
punishment ; and women as well as men should 
be included under the terms of the acts placing 
restraints upon alien enemies. It is likely that 
as time goes on many alien enemies will be 
willing to be fed and housed at the expense of 
the Government in the detention camps, and 
it would be the purpose of the legislation I have 
suggested to confine offenders among them in 
penitentiaries and other similar institutions, 
where they could be made to work as other 
criminals do. 

A FURTHER LIMITING OF PRICES 

Recent experience has convinced me that 
the Congress must go further in authorizing 
the Government to set limits to prices. The 
law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, 
has been replaced by the law of unrestrained 
selfishness. While we have eliminated profit- 
eering in several branches of industry, it still 
runs impudently rampant in others. The farm- 
ers, for example, complain with a great deal 



126 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

of justice that, while the regulation of food 
prices restricts their incomes, no restraints are 
placed upon the prices of most of the things 
they must themselves purchase; and similar 
inequities obtain on all sides. 

It is imperatively necessary that the con- 
sideration of the full use of the water power of 
the country, and also the consideration of the 
systematic and yet economical development of 
such of the natural resources of the country 
as are still under the control of the Federal 
Government, should be resumed and affirma- 
tively and constructively dealt with at the 
earliest possible moment. The pressing need 
of such legislation is daily becoming more 
obvious. 

The legislation proposed at the last session 
with regard to regulated combinations among 
our exporters, in order to provide for our for- 
eign trade a more effective organization and 
method of co-operation, ought by all means to 
be completed at this session. 

And I beg that the members of the House of 
Representatives will permit me to express the 
opinion that it will be impossible to deal in 
any way but a very wasteful and extravagant 
fashion with the enormous appropriations of 
the public moneys which must continue to be 
made, if the war is to be properly sustained, 
unless the House will consent to return to its 
former practice of initiating and preparing all 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 127 

appropriation bills through a single committee, 
in order that responsibility may be centered, 
expenditures standardized and made uniform, 
and waste and duplication as much as possible 
avoided. 

Additional legislation may also become nec- 
essary before the present Congress adjourns, in 
order to effect the most efficient co-ordination 
and operation of the railway and other trans- 
portation systems of the country; but to that 
I shall, if circumstances should demand, call 
the attention of Congress upon another occasion. 

THE WINNING OF THE WAR 

If I have overlooked anything that ought to 
be done for the more effective conduct of the 
war, your own counsels will supply the omis- 
sion. What I am perfectly clear about is that, 
in the present session of the Congress, our 
whole attention and energy should be con- 
centrated on the vigorous and rapid and suc- 
cessful prosecution of the great task of winning 
the war. 

We can do this with all the greater zeal and 
enthusiasm because we know that for us this is 
a war of high principle, debased by no selfish 
ambition of conquest or spoliation ; because we 
know, and all the world knows, that we have 
been forced into it to save the very institutions 
we live under from corruption and destruction. 
The purposes of the Central Powers strike 



128 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

straight at the very heart of everything we be- 
lieve in ; their methods of warfare outrage every 
principle of humanity and of knightly honor; 
their intrigue has corrupted the very thought and 
spirit of many of our people ; their sinister and 
secret diplomacy has sought to take our very 
territory away from us and disrupt the union 
of the States. Our safety would be at an end, 
our honor forever sullied and brought into con- 
tempt, were we to permit their triumph. They 
are striking at the very existence of democracy 
and liberty. 

It is because it is for us a war of high, disin- 
terested purpose, in which all the free people 
of the world are banded together for the vindi- 
cation of right, a war for the preservation of 
our nation and of all that it has held dear of 
principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves 
doubly constrained to propose for its outcome 
only that which is righteous and of irreproach- 
able intention, for our foes as well as for our 
friends. 

The cause being just and holy, the settle- 
ment must be of like motive and quality. For 
this we can fight, but for nothing less noble or 
less worthy of our traditions. For this cause 
we entered the war, and for this cause we will 
battle until the last gun is fired. 

I have spoken plainly because this seems to 
me the time when it is most necessary to speak 
plainly, in order that all the world may know 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 129 

that even in the heat and ardor of the struggle, 
and when our whole thought is of carrying the 
war through to its end, we have not forgotten 
any ideal or principle for which the name of 
America has been held in honor among the 
nations and for which it has been our glory to 
contend in the great generations that went 
before us. 

A supreme moment of history has come. 
The eyes of the people have been opened and 
they see. The hand of God is laid upon the 
nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly 
believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of 
His own justice and mercy. 



XVIII 

PROCLAMATION OF WAR AGAINST AUSTRIA- 
HUNGARY 

(December 12, 1917) 

The President's proclamation, after citing 
the resolution of Congress authorizing the war 
with Austria, says : 

Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, Presi- 
dent of the United States of America, do hereby 
proclaim to all whom it may concern that a 
state of war exists between the United States 
and the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian 
Government, and I do specially direct all offi- 
cers, civil or military, of the United States 
that they exercise vigilance and zeal in the 
discharge of the duties incident to such a 
state of war. 

And I do, moreover, earnestly appeal to all 
American citizens that they, in loyal devotion 
to their country, dedicated from its foundation 
to the principles of liberty and justice, uphold 
the laws of the land and give undivided and 
willing support to those measures which may 
be adopted by the constitutional authorities 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 131 

in prosecuting the war to a successful issue 
and obtaining a secure and just peace. 

NEED ONLY OBEY THE LAWS 

And, acting under and by virtue of the au- 
thority vested in me by the Constitution of the 
United States, and the aforesaid sections of 
the Revised Statutes, I do hereby further pro- 
claim and direct that the conduct to be ob- 
served on the part of the United States toward 
all natives, citizens, denizens or subjects of 
Austria-Hungary, being males of the age of 
fourteen years and upward, who shall be within 
the United States and not actually naturalized, 
shall be as follows : 

All natives, citizens, denizens or subjects of Austria- 
Hungary, being males of fourteen years and upward 
who shall be within the United States and not actually- 
naturalized, are enjoined to preserve the peace toward 
the United States and to refrain from crime against 
the public safety and from violating the laws of the 
United States and of the States and Territories thereof. 

And to refrain from actual hostility or giving infor- 
mation, aid or comfort to the enemies of the United 
States. 

And to comply strictly with the regulations which 
are hereby or which may be, from time to time, promul- 
gated by the President. 

And so long as they shall conduct themselves in 
accordance with law, they shall be undisturbed in the 
peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupations and be 
accorded the consideration due to all peaceful and law- 
abiding persons, except so far as restrictions may be 



i 3 2 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

necessary for their own protection and for the safety 
of the United States. 

A FRIENDLY ATTITUDE IS URGED 

And toward such of said persons ? as con- 
duct themselves in accordance with law, all 
citizens of the United States are enjoined to 
preserve the peace and to treat them with all 
such friendliness as may be compatible with 
loyalty and allegiance to the United States. 

And all natives, citizens, denizens or sub- 
jects of Austria-Hungary, being males of the 
age of fourteen years and upward, who shall 
be within the United States and not actually 
naturalized, who fail to conduct themselves as 
so enjoined, in addition to all other penalties 
prescribed by law, shall be liable to restraint 
or to give security, or to remove and depart 
from the United States in the manner pre- 
scribed by Sections 4069 and 4070 of the Re- 
vised Statutes and as prescribed in regulations 
duly promulgated by the President : 

FEW REGULATIONS 

And pursuant to the authority vested in 
me, I hereby declare and establish the follow- 
ing regulations, which I find necessary in the 
premises, and for the public safety: 

1. No native, citizen, denizen or subject of Austria- 
Hungary, being a male of the age of fourteen years and 
upward and not actually naturalized, shall depart from 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 133 

the United Stages until he shall have received such per- 
mit as the President shall prescribe, or except under order 
of a court, judge or justice, under Sections 4069 and 4070 
of the Revised Statutes. 

2. No such person shall land or enter the United 
States except under such restrictions and at such places 
as the President may prescribe. 

3. Every such person, of whom there may be reason- 
able cause to believe that he is aiding or about to aid the 
enemy, or who may be at large to the danger of the public 
peace or safety, or who violates or attempts to violate, 
or of whom there is reasonable ground to believe that he 
is about to violate any regulation duly promulgated by 
the President, or any criminal law of the United States, 
or of the States or Territories thereof, will be subject to 
summary arrest by the United States Marshal or his 
deputy, or such other officers as the President shall desig- 
nate, and to confinement in such penitentiary, prison, 
jail, military camp or other place of detention as may 
be directed by the President. 

This proclamation and the regulations 
herein contained shall extend and apply to all 
land and water, continental or insular, in any 
way within the jurisdiction of the United 
States. 



XIX 

THE GOVERNMENT TAKES OVER THE 
RAILROADS 

(A Statement by the President, December 26, 1917) 

I have exercised the powers over the trans- 
portation systems of the country which were 
granted me by the Act of Congress of Au- 
gust, 1 9 16, because it has become imperatively 
necessary for me to do so. 

This is a war of resources no less than of 
men, perhaps even more than of men, and it 
is necessary for the complete mobilization of 
our resources that the transportation systems 
of the country should be organized and em- 
ployed under a single authority and a simpli- 
fied method of co-ordination which have not 
proved possible under private management 
and control. 

The committee of railway executives who 
have been co-operating with the Government 
in this all-important matter have done the ut- 
most that it was possible for them to do; have 
done it with patriotic zeal and with great abil- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 135 

ity; but there were differences that they could 
neither escape nor neutralize. 



IN FAIRNESS TO THE RAILROADS 

Complete unity of administration in the 
present circumstances involves upon occasion 
and at many points a serious dislocation of 
earnings, and the committee was, of course, 
without power or authority to rearrange changes 
or effect proper compensations and adjustments 
of earnings. Several roads which were will- 
ingly and with admirable public spirit accept- 
ing the orders of the committee have already 
suffered from these circumstances and should 
not be required to suffer further. In mere 
fairness to them the full authority of the 
Government must be substituted. 

The Government itself will thereby gain 
an immense increase of efficiency in the 
conduct of the war and of the innumerable 
activities upon which its successful conduct 
depends. 

The public interest must be first served, and 
in addition the financial interests of the Gov- 
ernment and the financial interests of the rail- 
ways must be brought under a common direc- 
tion. The financial operations of the railways 
need not then interfere with the borrowings of 
the Government, and they themselves can be 

conducted at a great advantage. 
10 



136 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

INVESTORS TO BE PROTECTED 

Investors in railway securities may rest as- 
sured that their rights and interests will be as 
scrupulously looked after by the Government 
as they could be by the directors of the 
several railway systems. Immediately upon 
the reassembling of Congress I shall recom- 
mend that these definite guarantees be given : 

First, of course, that the railway properties 
will be maintained during the period of Fed- 
eral control in as good repair and as complete 
equipment as when taken over by the Gov- 
ernment, and, second, that the roads shall re- 
ceive a net operating income equal in each case 
to the average net income of the three years 
preceding June 30, 191 7; and I am entirely 
confident that the Congress will be disposed 
in this case, as in others, to see that justice 
is done and full security assured to the own- 
ers and creditors of the great systems which 
the Government must now use under its own 
direction or else suffer serious embarrassment. 

The Secretary of War and I are agreed that, 
all the circumstances being taken into consid- 
eration, the best results can be obtained under 
the immediate executive direction of the Hon. 
William G. McAdoo, whose practical experi- 
ence peculiarly fits him for the service, and 
whose authority as Secretary of the Treasury 
will enable him to co-ordinate, as no other man 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 137 

could, the many financial interests which will 
be involved and which might, unless systemat- 
ically directed, suffer very embarrassing en- 
tanglements. 

A RECOGNITION OF FACTS 

The Government of the United States is the 
only great Government now engaged in the 
war which has not already assumed control of 
this sort. It was thought to be in the spirit 
of American institutions to attempt to do 
everything that was necessary through private 
management, and if zeal and ability and patri- 
otic motive could have accomplished the nec- 
essary unification of administration, it would 
certainly have been accomplished; but no zeal 
or ability could overcome insuperable obstacles 
and I have deemed it my duty to recognize 
that fact in all candor, now that it is demon- 
strated, and to use without reserve the great 
authority reposed in me. 

A great national necessity dictated the ac- 
tion, and I was therefore not at liberty to 
abstain from it. 

Woodrow Wilson. 

The text of the proclamation follows : 

Whereas, the Congress of the United States, in the ex- 
ercise of the constitutional authority vested in them, by 
joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, bearing date April 6, 191 7, resolved: 



1 3 8 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

"That the state of war between the United States and 
the Imperial German Government which has thus been 
thrust upon the United States is hereby formally de- 
clared, and that the President be, and he is hereby, 
authorized and directed to employ the entire naval 
and military forces of the United States and the re- 
sources of the Government to carry on war against 
the Imperial German Government, and to bring the 
conflict to a successful termination, all of the re- 
sources of the country are hereby pledged by the 
Congress of the United States." 

And by joint resolution bearing date of December 

7, 1 91 7, resolved: 

"That a state of war is hereby declared to exist between 
the United States of America and the Imperial and 
Royal Austro-Hungarian Government, and that the 
President be, and he is hereby, authorized and di- 
rected to employ the entire naval and military forces 
of the United States and the resources of the Govern- 
ment to carry on war against the Imperial and Royal 
Austro-Hungarian Government, and to bring the 
conflict to a successful termination, all the resources 
of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of 
the United States." 

And whereas, it is provided by Section 1 of the act 
approved August 29, 191 6, entitled "An act making 
appropriations for the support of the army for the fiscal 
year ending June 30, 191 7, and for other purposes," as 
follows: 

"The President, in time of war, is empowered, through 
the Secretary of War, to take possession and assume 
control of any system or systems of transportation, 
or any part thereof, and to utilize the same, to the 
exclusion as far as may be necessary of all other 
traffic thereon, for the transfer or transportation of 
troops, war material and equipment, or for such other 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 139 

purposes connected with the emergency as may be 
needful or desirable." 

And whereas, it has now become necessary in the 
national defense to take possession and assume control of 
certain systems of transportation and to utilize the same, 
to the exclusion as far as may be necessary of other than 
war traffic thereon for the transportation of troops, war 
material and equipment therefor, and for other needful 
and desirable purposes connected with the prosecution 
of the war. 

Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the 
United States, under and by virtue of the powers vested 
in me by the foregoing resolutions and statute, and by 
virtue of all other powers thereto me enabling, do hereby, 
through Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, take pos- 
session and assume control at 12 o'clock noon on the 
twenty-eighth day of December, 191 7, of each and every 
system of transportation and the appurtenances thereof 
located wholly or in part within the boundaries of the 
continental United States and consisting of railroads, and 
owned or controlled systems of coastwise and inland 
transportation, engaged in general transportation, 
whether operated by steam or by electric power, including 
also terminals, terminal companies and terminal associa- 
tions, sleeping and parlor cars, private cars and private 
car lines, elevators, warehouses, telegraph and telephone 
lines and all other equipment and appurtenances com- 
monly used upon or operated as a part of such rail or 
combined rail and water systems of transportation, to 
the end that such systems of transportation be utilized 
for the transfer and transportation of troops, war ma- 
terial and equipment to the exclusion so far as may be 
necessary of all other traffic thereon, and that so far as 
such exclusive use be not necessary or desirable, such 
systems of transportation be operated and utilized in the 
performance of such other services as the national interest 



140 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

may require and of the usual and ordinary business and 
duties of common carriers. 

It is hereby directed that the possession, control, op- 
eration and utilization of such transportation systems 
hereby by me undertaken shall be exercised by and 
through William G. McAdoo, who is hereby appointed 
and designated Director-General of Railroads. 

Said director may perform the duties imposed upon 
him, so long and to such extent as he shall determine, 
through the boards of directors, receivers, officers and 
employees of said systems of transportation. Until and 
except so far as said director shall from time to time by 
general or special orders otherwise provide, the boards 
of directors, receivers, officers and employees of the vari- 
ous transportation systems shall continue the operation 
thereof in the usual and ordinary course of the business 
of common carriers, in the names of their respective 
companies. 

Until and except so far as said director shall from 
time to time otherwise by general or special orders deter- 
mine, such systems of transportation shall remain subject 
to all existing statutes and orders of the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission, and to all statutes and orders of regu- 
lating commissions of the various States in which said 
systems or any part thereof may be situated. But any 
orders, general or special, hereafter made by said director 
shall have paramount authority and be obeyed as such. 

Nothing herein shall be construed as now affecting 
the possession, operation and control of street electric 
passenger railways, including railways commonly called 
interurban, whether such railways be or be not owned or 
controlled by such railroad companies or systems. By 
subsequent order and proclamation, if and when it shall 
be found necessary or desirable, possession, control or 
operation may be taken of all or any part of such street 
railway systems, including subways and tunnels, and by 
subsequent order and proclamation possession, control 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 141 

and operation in whole or in part may also be relinquished 
to the owners thereof of any part of the railroad systems 
or rail and water systems, possession and control of which 
are hereby assumed. 

The director shall as soon as may be after having 
assumed such possession and control enter upon nego- 
tiations with the several companies looking to agree- 
ments for just and reasonable compensation for the 
possession, use and control of the respective properties 
on the basis of an annual guaranteed compensation, 
above accruing depreciation and the maintenance of 
their properties, equivalent, as nearly as may be, to the 
average of the net operating income thereof for the three 
year period ending June 30, 191 7 — the results of such 
negotiations to be reported to me for such action as may 
be appropriate and lawful. 

But nothing herein contained, expressed or implied, 
or hereafter done or suffered hereunder, shall be deemed 
in any way to impair the rights of the stockholders, 
bondholders, creditors and other persons having inter- 
ests in said systems of transportation or in the profits 
thereof, to receive just and adequate compensation for 
the use and control and operation of their property 
hereby assumed. 

Regular dividends hitherto declared, and maturing 
interest upon bonds, debentures and other obligations, 
may be paid in due course, and such regular dividends 
and interest may continue to be paid until and unless 
the said director shall from time to time otherwise by 
general or special orders determine, and, subject to the 
approval of the director, the various carriers may agree 
upon and arrange for the renewal and extension of 
maturing obligations. 

Except with the prior written assent of said director, 
no attachment by mesne process or on execution shall 
be levied on or against any of the property used by any 
of said transportation systems, in the conduct of their 



i 4 2 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

business as common carriers; but suits may be brought 
by and against said carriers and judgments rendered as 
hitherto until and except so far as said director may, by 
general or special orders, otherwise determine. 

From and after 12 o'clock on said twenty -eighth day of 
December, 191 7, all transportation systems included in 
this order and proclamation shall conclusively be deemed 
within the possession and control of said director without 
further act or notice, but for the purpose of accounting 
said possession and control shall date from 12 o'clock 
midnight on December 31, 191 7. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and 
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done by the President, through Newton D. Baker, 
Secretary of War, in the District of Columbia, this 
twenty-sixth day of December, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, and of Inde- 
pendence of the United States the one hundred and 
forty-second. 

Woodrow Wilson. 

Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War. 
By the President: 
Robert Lansing, Secretary of State. 



XX 

GOVERNMENT OPERATION OF RAILROADS 
(Address to the Congress, January 4, 191 8) 

Gentlemen of the Congress, — I have 
asked the privilege of addressing you in order 
to report that on the 28th of December last, 
during the recess of Congress, acting through 
the Secretary of War, and under the authority 
conferred upon me by the Act of Congress ap- 
proved August 29, 1 91 6, I took possession and 
assumed control of the railway lines of the 
country and the systems of water transporta- 
tion under their control. This step seemed to 
be imperatively necessary in the interest of the 
public welfare, in the presence of the great 
tasks of war with which we are now dealing. 
As our experience develops difficulties and 
makes it clear what they are, I have deemed 
it my duty to remove those difficulties wher- 
ever I have the legal power to do so. 

To assume control of the vast railway sys- 
tems of the country is, I realize, a very great re- 
sponsibilit^r, but to fail to do so in the existing 
circumstances would have been much greater. 



i 4 4 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

I assumed the less responsibility rather than 
the weightier. 

NEED OF UNITED DIRECTION 

I am sure that I am speaking the mind of 
all thoughtful Americans when I say that it is 
our duty as the representatives of the nation 
to do everything that it is necessary to do to 
secure the complete mobilization of the whole 
resources of America by as rapid and effective 
a means as can be found. Transportation 
supplies all the arteries of mobilization. Un- 
less it be under a single and unified direction, 
the whole process of the nation's action is 
embarrassed. 

It was in the true spirit of America, and it 
was right, that we should first try to effect the 
necessary unification under the voluntary ac- 
tion of those who were in charge of the great 
railway properties, and we did try it. The 
directors of the railways responded to the need 
promptly and generously. The group of rail- 
way executives who were charged with the 
task of actual co-ordination and general direc- 
tion performed their difficult duties with patri- 
otic zeal and marked ability, as was to have 
been expected, and did, I believe, everything 
that it was possible for them to do in the cir- 
cumstances. If I have taken the task out of 
their hands, it has not been because of any 
dereliction or failure on their part, but only 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 145 

because there were some things which the 
Government can do, and private management 
cannot. We shall continue to value most 
highly the advice and assistance of these 
gentlemen, and I am sure we shall not find 
them withholding it. 

It had become unmistakably plain that only 
under Government administration can the en- 
tire equipment of the several systems of trans- 
portation be fully and unreservedly thrown 
into a common service without injurious dis- 
crimination against particular properties ; only 
under Government administration can abso- 
lutely unrestricted and unembarrassed com- 
mon use be made of all tracks, terminal facili- 
ties and equipment of every kind. Only under 
that authority can new terminals be con- 
structed and developed without regard to the 
requirements or limitations of particular roads. 
But under Government administration all these 
things will be possible — not instantly, but as 
fast as practical difficulties, which cannot be 
merely conjured away, give way before the 
new management. 

AS LITTLE DISTURBANCE AS POSSIBLE 

The common administration will be carried 
out with as little disturbance of the present 
operating organizations and personnel of the 
railways as possible. Nothing will be altered 
or disturbed which is not necessary to disturb. 



i 4 6 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

We are serving the public interest and safe- 
guarding the public safety, but we are also 
regardful of the interest of those by whom 
these great properties are owned and glad to 
avail ourselves of the experience and trained 
ability of those who have been managing them. 
It is necessary that the transportation of troops 
and of war materials, of food and of fuel, and 
of everything that is necessary for the full mo- 
bilization of the energies and resources of the 
country, should be first considered; but it is 
clearly in the public interest also that the or- 
dinary activities and the normal industrial and 
commercial life of the country should be inter- 
fered with and dislocated as little as possible, 
and the public may rest assured that the inter- 
est and convenience of the private shipper will 
be carefully served and safeguarded as it is 
possible to serve and safeguard it in the present 
extraordinary circumstances. 

COMPENSATION SHOULD BE GUARANTEED 

While the present authority of the Execu- 
tive suffices for all purposes of administration, 
and while, of course, all private interests must 
for the present give way to the public neces- 
sity, it is, I am sure you will agree with me, 
right and necessary that the owners and credi- 
tors of the railways, the holders of their stocks 
and bonds, should receive from the Govern- 
ment an unqualified guarantee that their prop- 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 147 

erties will be maintained throughout the period 
of Federal control in as good repair and as com- 
plete equipment as at present, and that the 
several roads will receive, under Federal man- 
agement, such compensation as is equitable 
and just alike to their owners and to the gen- 
eral public. I would suggest the average net 
railway operating income of the three years 
ending June 30, 191 7. I earnestly recommend 
that these guarantees be given by appropriate 
legislation, and given as promptly as circum- 
stances permit. 

I need not point out the essential justice of 
such guarantees and their great influence and 
significance as elements in the present finan- 
cial and industrial situation of the country. 
Indeed, one of the strong arguments for as- 
suming control of the railroads at this time is 
the financial argument. It is necessary that 
the values of railway securities should be justly 
and fairly protected, and that the largest finan- 
cial operations every year necessary in connec- 
tion with the maintenance, operation and de- 
velopment of the roads should, during the 
period of the war, be wisely related to the 
financial operations of the Government. 

Our first duty is, of course, to conserve the 
common interest and the common safety, and 
to make certain that nothing stands in the way 
of the successful prosecution of the great war 
for liberty and justice; but it is an obligation 



148 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

of public conscience and of public honor that 
the private interests we disturb should be kept 
safe from unjust injury, and it is of the utmost 
consequence to the Government itself that all 
great financial operations should be stabilized 
and co-ordinated with the financial operations 
of the Government. No borrowing should run 
athwart the borrowings of the Federal Treas- 
ury, and no fundamental industrial values 
should anywhere be unnecessarily impaired. 
In the hands of many thousands of small in- 
vestors in the country, as well as in national 
banks, in insurance companies, in savings 
banks, in trust companies, in financial agen- 
cies of every kind, railway securities — the sum 
total of which runs up to some ten or eleven 
thousand millions, constitute a vital part of the 
structure of credit, and the unquestioned 
solidity of that structure must be maintained. 

SELECTION OF MCADOO AS DIRECTOR 

The Secretary of War and I easily agreed 
that, in view of the many complex interests 
which must be safeguarded and harmonized, 
as well as because of his exceptional experience 
and ability in this new field of governmental 
action, the Hon. William G. McAdoo was the 
right man to assume direct administrative con- 
trol of this new executive task. At our re- 
quest, he consented to assume the authority 
and duties of organizer and director-general of 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 149 

the new railway administration. He has as- 
sumed those duties, and his work is in active 
progress. 

It is probably too much to expect that, even 
under the unified railway administration which 
will now be possible, sufficient economies can 
be effected in the operation of the railways to 
make it possible to add to their equipment 
and extend their operative facilities as much 
as the present extraordinary demands upon 
their use will render desirable, without resort- 
ing to the national Treasury for the funds. If 
it is not possible, it will, of course, be necessary 
to resort to the Congress for grants of money 
for that purpose. The Secretary of the Treas- 
ury will advise with your committees with re- 
gard to this very practical aspect of the matter. 
For the present, I suggest only the guarantees 
I have indicated and such appropriations as 
are necessary at the outset of this task. 

I take the liberty of expressing the hope that 
the Congress may grant these promptly and 
ungrudgingly. We are dealing with great 
matters, and will, I am sure, deal with them 
greatly. 



XXI 

THE TERMS OF PEACE 
{January 8, 1918) 

In an address to both Houses of Congress, 
assembled in joint session, President Wilson 
enunciated the war and peace program of the 
United States in fourteen definite proposals. 
The President spoke as follows : 

Gentlemen of the Congress, — Once 
more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of 
the Central Empires have indicated their de- 
sires to discuss the objects of the war and the 
possible basis of a general peace. Parleys have 
been in progress at Brest- Lit ovsk between Rus- 
sian representatives and representatives of the 
Central Powers to which the attention of all 
the belligerents has been invited for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining whether it may be possible 
to extend these parleys into a general confer- 
ence with regard to terms of peace and 
settlement. 

The Russian representatives presented not 
only a perfectly definite statement of the prin- 
ciples upon which they would be willing to 
conclude peace, but also an equally definite 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 151 

program of the concrete application of those 
principles. The representatives of the Central 
Powers, on their part, presented an outline of 
settlement which, if much less definite, seemed 
susceptible of liberal interpretation until their 
specific program of practical terms was added. 
That program proposed no concessions at all, 
either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the 
preferences of the population with whose fort- 
unes it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the 
Central Empires were to keep every foot of 
territory their armed forces had occupied — 
every province, every city, every point of van- 
tage — as a permanent addition to their terri- 
tories and their power. It is a reasonable 
conjecture that the general principles of settle- 
ment which they at first suggested originated 
with the more liberal statesmen of Germany 
and Austria, the men who have begun to feel 
the force of their own people's thought and 
purpose, while the concrete terms of actual 
settlement came from the military leaders who 
have no thought but to keep what they have 
got. The negotiations have been broken off. 
The Russian representatives were sincere and 
in earnest. They cannot entertain such pro- 
posals of conquest and domination. 

SIGNIFICANCE IN PARLEYS 

The whole incident is full of significance. 

It is also full of perplexity. With whom are 
11 



152 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

the Russian representatives dealing? For 
whom are the representatives of the Central 
Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the 
majorities of their respective parliaments, or for 
the minority parties — that military and im- 
perialistic minority which has so far dominated 
their whole policy and controlled the affairs of 
Turkey and the Balkan states, which have felt 
obliged to become their associates in this war? 
The Russian representatives have insisted, 
very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit 
of modern democracy, that the conferences 
they have been holding with the Teutonic and 
Turkish statesmen should be held within open, 
not closed, doors, and all the world has been 
audience, as was desired. 

To whom have we been listening, then? 
To those who speak the spirit and intention of 
the resolution of the German Reichstag of the 
9th of July last, the spirit and intention of the 
Liberal leaders and parties of Germany, or to 
those who resist and defy that spirit and in- 
tention and insist upon conquest and subjuga- 
tion? Or are we listening, in fact, to both, 
unreconciled and in open and hopeless contra- 
diction? These are very serious and pregnant 
questions. Upon the answer to them depends 
the peace of the world. 

But, whatever the results of the parleys at 
Brest-Litovsk, whatever the confusions of 
counsel and of purpose in the utterances of the 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 153 

spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have 
again attempted to acquaint the world with 
their objects in the war and have again chal- 
lenged their adversaries to say what their ob- 
jects are and what sort of settlement they 
would deem just and satisfactory. There is 
no good reason why that challenge should not 
be responded to and responded to with the 
utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not 
once, but again and again, we have laid our 
whole thought and purpose before the world, 
not in general terms only, but each time with 
sufficient definition to make it clear what sort of 
definitive terms of settlement must necessarily 
spring out of them. 

lloyd George's aims approved 

Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George 
has spoken with admirable candor and in ad- 
mirable spirit for the people and Government 
of Great Britain. There is no confusion of 
counsel among the adversaries of the Central 
Powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vague- 
ness of detail. The only secrecy of counsel, 
the only lack of fearless frankness, the only 
failure to make definite statement of the ob- 
jects of the war lies with Germany and her 
allies. The issues of life and death hang upon 
these definitions. No statesman who has the 
least conception of his responsibility ought for 
a moment to permit himself to continue this 



iS4 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and 
treasure unless he is sure beyond a peradvent- 
ure that the objects of the vital sacrifice are 
part and parcel of the very life of society, and 
that the people for whom he speaks think them 
right and imperative, as he does. 

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these 
definitions of principle and of purpose which is, 
it seems to me, more thrilling and more com- 
pelling than any of the many moving voices 
with which the troubled air of the world is 
filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. 
They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would 
seem, before the grim power of Germany, which 
has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. 
Their power apparently is shattered. And yet 
their soul is not subservient. They will not 
yield either in principle or in action. Their con- 
ception of what is right, of what it is humane 
and honorable for them to accept, has been 
stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a 
generosity of spirit and a universal human 
sympathy which must challenge the admira- 
tion of every friend of mankind ; and they have 
refused to compound their ideals or desert 
others that they themselves may be safe. 

WOULD LIKE TO AID RUSSIA 

They call to us to say what it is that we 
desire — in what, if in anything, our purpose 
and our spirit differ from theirs ; and I believe 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 155 

that the people of the United States would 
wish me to respond with utter simplicity and 
frankness. Whether their present leaders be- 
lieve it or not, it is our heartfelt desire and 
hope that some way may be opened whereby 
we may be privileged to assist the people of 
Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty 
and ordered peace. 

It will be our wish and purpose that the 
processes of peace, when they are begun, shall 
be absolutely open, and that they shall involve 
and permit henceforth no secret understand- 
ings of any kind. The day of conquest and 
aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day 
of secret covenants entered into in the interest 
of particular governments and likely, at some 
unlooked-for moment, to upset the peace of 
the world. It is this happy fact, now clear 
to the view of every public man whose 
thoughts do not still linger in an age that 
is dead and gone, which makes it possible 
for every nation whose purposes are consist- 
ent with justice and the peace of the world 
to avow now, or at any other time, the objects 
it has in view. 

We entered this war because violations of 
right had occurred which touched us to the 
quick and made the life of our own people 
impossible unless they were corrected and the 
world secured once for all against their recur- 
rence. What we demand in this war, there- 



156 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

fore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is 
that the world be made fit and safe to live in ; 
and particularly that it be made safe for every 
peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes 
to live its own life, determine its own institu- 
tions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by 
the other peoples of the world as against force 
and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the 
world are in effect partners in this interest, 
and for our own part we see very clearly that 
unless justice be done to others it will not be 
done to us. 

THE DEFINITE PROGRAM 

The program of the world's peace, there- 
fore, is our program, and that program, the 
only possible program, as we see it, is this: 

I. Open covenants of peace, openly [ar- 
rived at, after which there shall be no private 
international understandings of any kind, but 
diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in 
the public view. 

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon 
the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in 
peace and in war, except as the seas may be 
closed in whole or in part by international 
action for the enforcement of international 
covenants. 

III. The removal, so far as possible, of 
all economic barriers and the establishment of 
an equality of trade conditions among all the 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 157 

nations consenting to the peace and associating 
themselves for its maintenance. 

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken 
that national armaments will be reduced to 
the lowest point consistent with domestic 
safety. 

V. A free, open-minded and absolutely 
impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, 
based upon a strict observance of the principle 
that in determining all such questions of sov- 
ereignty the interests of the populations con- 
cerned must have equal weight with the equi- 
table claims of the Government whose title is 
to be determined. 

VI. The evacuation of all Russian terri- 
tory and such a settlement of all questions 
affecting Russia as will secure the best and 
freest co-operation of the other nations of the 
world in obtaining for her an unhampered and 
unembarrassed opportunity for the indepen- 
dent determination of her own political devel- 
opment and national policy and assure her of 
a sincere welcome into the society of free na- 
tions under institutions of her own choosing; 
and, more than a welcome, assistance also of 
every kind that she may need and may herself 
desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her 
sister nations will be the acid test of their good 
will, of their comprehension of her needs as 
distinguished from their own interests and of 
their intelligent and unselfish sympathy, 



iS8 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

BELGIUM MUST BE RESTORED 

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, 
must be evacuated and restored, without any 
attempt to limit the sovereignty which she en- 
joys in common with all other free nations. 
No other single act will serve as this will serve 
to restore confidence among the nations in the 
laws which they have themselves set and de- 
termined for the government of their relations 
with one another. Without this healing act 
the whole structure and validity of interna- 
tional law is forever impaired. 

VIII. All French territory should be freed 
and the invaded portions restored, and the 
wrong done to France by Prussia in 187 1 in 
the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has un- 
settled the peace of the world for nearly fifty 
years, should be righted, in order that peace 
may once more be made secure in the interest 
of all. 

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of 
Italy should be effected along clearly recogniz- 
able lines of nationality. 

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose 
place among the nations we wish to see safe- 
guarded and assured, should be accorded the 
freest opportunity of autonomous development. 

XL Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro 
should be evacuated; occupied territories re- 
stored; Serbia accorded free and secure access 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 159 

to the sea; and the relations of the several 
Balkan states to one another determined by 
friendly counsel along historically established 
lines of allegiance and nationality; and interna- 
tional guarantees of the political and economic 
independence and territorial integrity of the 
several Balkan states should be entered into. 

XII. The Turkish portions of the present 
Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure 
sovereignty, but the other nationalities which 
are now under Turkish rule should be assured 
an undoubted security of life and an absolutely 
unmolested opportunity of autonomous devel- 
opment, and the Dardanelles should be per- 
manently opened as a free passage to the ships 
and commerce of all nations under international 
guarantees. 

INDEPENDENCE FOR POLAND 

XIII. An independent Polish state should 
be erected which should include the territories 
inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, 
which should be assured a free and secure access 
to the sea, and whose political and economic 
independence and territorial integrity should 
be guaranteed by international covenant. 

XIV. A general association of nations 
must be formed under specific covenants for 
the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of 
political independence and territorial integrity 
to great and small states alike, 



160 IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 

In regard to these essential rectifica- 
tions of wrong and assertions of right, we 
feel ourselves to be intimate partners of 
all the Governments and peoples associated 
together against the imperialists. We can- 
not be separated in interest or divided in 
purpose. We stand together until the 
end. 

"For such arrangements and covenants we 
are willing to fight, and to continue to fight, 
until they are achieved; but only because we 
wish the right to prevail and desire a just and 
stable peace, such as can be secured only by 
removing the chief provocations to war, which 
this program does remove. We have no 
jealousy of German greatness, and there is 
nothing in this program that impairs it. We 
grudge her no achievement or distinction of 
learning or of pacific enterprise, such as have 
made her record very bright and very envi- 
able. We do not wish to injure her or to block 
in any way her legitimate influence or power. 
We do not wish to fight her either with arms 
or with hostile arrangements of trade, if she is 
willing to associate herself with us and the 
other peace-loving nations of the world in cove- 
nants of justice and law and fair dealing. We 
wish her only to accept a place of equality 
among the peoples of the world — the new world 
in which we now live — instead of a place of 
mastery. 



IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF WAR 161 

Germany's spokesmen an issue 

Neither do we presume to suggest to her 
any alteration or modification of her institu- 
tions. But it is necessary, we must frankly 
say, and necessary as a preliminary to any in- 
telligent dealings with her on our part, that we 
should know whom her spokesmen speak for 
when they speak to us, whether for the Reichs- 
tag majority or for the military party and the 
men whose creed is imperial domination. 

We have spoken now surely in terms too 
concrete to admit of any further doubt or ques- 
tion. An evident principle runs through the 
whole program I have outlined. It is the prin- 
ciple of justice to all peoples and nationalities 
and their right to live on equal terms of liberty 
and safety with one another, whether they be 
strong or weak. Unless this principle be made 
its foundation, no part of the structure of in- 
ternational justice can stand. The people of 
the United States could act upon no other 
principle, and to the vindication of this prin- 
ciple they are ready to devote their lives, their 
honor and everything that they possess. The 
moral climax of this, the culminating and final 
war for human liberty, has come, and they are 
ready to put their own strength, their own 
highest purpose, their own integrity and de- 
votion to the test, 



APPENDIX 

STATE DEPARTMENT'S REVISED LIST OF 

NATIONS AT WAR WHICH HAVE 

BROKEN RELATIONS 

DECLARATIONS OF WAR 

The country declaring war is named first. 
Austria — Belgium, Aug. 28, 1914. 
Austria — Japan, Aug. 27, 1914. 
Austria — Montenegro, Aug. 9, 19 14. 
Austria — Russia, Aug. 6, 1914. 
Austria — Serbia, July 28, 1914. 
Brazil — Germany, Oct. 26, 1917. 
Bulgaria — Serbia, Oct. 14, 1915. 
China — Austria, Aug. 14, 191 7. 
China — Germany, Aug. 14, 1917. 
Cuba — Germany, April 7, 191 7. 
France — Austria, Aug. 13, 1914. 
France — Bulgaria, Oct. 16, 1915. 
France — Germany, Aug. 3, 1914. 
France — Turkey, Nov. 5, 19 14. 
Germany — Belgium, Aug. 4, 1914. 
Germany — France, Aug. 3, 1914. 
Germany — Portugal, March 9, 1916. 
Germany — Rumania, Sept. 14, 1916. 
Germany — Russia, Aug. 1, 19 14. 
Great Britain — Austria, Aug. 13, 1914. 



i6 4 APPENDIX 

Great Britain — Bulgaria, Oct. 15, 191 5. 

Great Britain — Germany, Aug. 4, 19 14. 

Great Britain — Turkey, Nov. 5, 19 14. 

Greece — Bulgaria, Nov. 28, 1916. (Provisional Govern- 
ment.) 

Greece — Bulgaria, July 2, 191 7. (Government of Alex- 
ander.) 

Greece — Germany, Nov. 28, 1916. (Provisional Gov- 
ernment.) 

Greece — Germany, July 2, 191 7. (Government of Alex- 
ander.) 

Italy — Austria, May 24, 191 5. 

Italy — Bulgaria, Oct. 19, 191 5. 

Italy — Germany, Aug. 28, 1916. 

Italy — Turkey, Aug. 21, 191 5. 

Japan — Germany, Aug. 28, 1914. 

Liberia — Germany, Aug. 4, 191 7. 

Montenegro — Austria, Aug. 8, 1914. 

Montenegro — Germany, Aug. 9, 19 14. 

Panama — Germany, April 7, 191 7. 

Panama — Austria, Dec. 10, 191 7. 

Portugal — Germany, Nov. 23, 1914. (Resolutions passed 
authorizing military intervention as ally of England.) 

Portugal — Germany, May 19, 1915. (Military aid 
granted.) 

Rumania — Austria, Aug. 27, 1916. (Allies of Austria 
also consider it a declaration.) 

Russia — Bulgaria, Oct. 19, 191 5. 

Russia — Turkey, Nov. 3, 1914. 

San Marino — Austria, May 24, 1915. 

Serbia — Bulgaria, Oct. 16, 191 5. 

Serbia — Germany, Aug. 6, 19 14. 

Serbia — Turkey, Dec. 2, 1914. 

Siam — Austria, July 22, 1917. 

Siam — Germany, July 22, 191 7. 

Turkey — Allies, Nov. 23, 1914. 

Turkey — Rumania, Aug. 29, 1916. 



APPENDIX 165 

United States — Austria-Hungary, Dec. 7, 191 7. 
United States — Germany, April 6, 19 17. 



SEVERANCE OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS 

Austria — Japan, Aug. 26, 1914. 

Austria — Portugal, March 16, 1916. 

Austria — Serbia, July 26, 19 14. 

Austria — United States, April 8, 191 7. 

Bolivia — Germany, April 14, 191 7. 

Brazil — Germany, April 11, 191 7. 

China — Germany, March 14, 19 17. 

Costa Rica — Germany, Sept. 21, 191 7. 

Ecuador — Germany, Dec. 7, 1917. 

Egypt — Germany, Aug. 13, 19 14. 

France — Austria, Aug. 10, 1914. 

Greece — Turkey, July 2, 191 7. (Government of Alex- 
ander.) 

Greece — Austria, July 2, 191 7. (Government of Alex- 
ander.) 

Guatemala — Germany, April 27, 191 7. 

Haiti — Germany, June 17, 191 7. 

Honduras — Germany, May 17, 1917. 

Nicaragua — Germany, May 18, 1917. 

Peru — Germany, Oct. 6, 1917. 

Turkey — United States, April 20, 191 7. 

United States — Germany, Feb. 3, 19 17. 

Uruguay — Germany, Oct. 7, 191 7. 

— From the Official Bulletin of the Committee 
on Public Information. 

POPULATION OF THE NATIONS 

Austria (including Hungary) 50,000,000 

Belgium 7,571,387 

Bolivia 2,520,538 

Brazil 22,992,937 



166 APPENDIX 

Bulgaria 4,755,000 

China 413,000,000 

Costa Rica 427,604 

Cuba 2,406,117 

Ecuador 1,500,000 

Egypt 12,170,000 

France 39,601,509 

Germany 66,715,000 

Great Britain 40,834,790 

Greece 5,000,000 

Guatemala 2,092,824 

Haiti 2,030,000 

Honduras 592,675 

Italy 35,598,000 

Japan 53,696,358 

Liberia 2,060,000 

Montenegro 520,000 

Nicaragua 689,891 

Panama 386,891 

Peru 4,500,000 

Portugal 5,857,895 

Rumania 7,600,000 

Russia 175,137,0°° 

San Marino 10,655 

Serbia 4,600,000 

Siam 6,000,000 

Turkey 21,274,000 

United States 102,826,309 

Uruguay 1,255,914 



THE END 



